


World Stops Turning

by godofhammers (kishafisha)



Series: What If This Storm Ends? [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), M/M, Sequel, individual chapter warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:57:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kishafisha/pseuds/godofhammers
Summary: Now, in darkness, world stops turning. Ashes where their bodies burning.Sometimes it's best to trick the universe into saving itself.Sequel to Rebuild All Your Ruins. Part I takes place concurrently with All Along the Watchtower.





	1. Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> This is the direct sequel of Rebuild All Your Ruins, with this first part taking place simultaneously to All Along the Watchtower. Thank you everyone for your lovely comments and encouragement! I would not have put myself through the struggle of stringing together my crazy ideas with the entire MCU without your encouragement. Very little of this has changed since I saw Infinity War ~~three times~~ , mainly the characterization for Thanos and Ebony Maw, as well as a few lines of dialog and the introduction of a whole Tony/Strange subplot that I was _not_ planning on.
> 
> Chapter warnings will be in the end notes of each chapter, though I give you fair warning that they'll likely contain spoilers. As a general warning, this fic does contain intersex/genderfluid!Loki, but _not_ as a kink. It's simply part of his character in my version of this universe ~~and every other version except the MCU *coughcough*~~. There will also be three explicit pairings (Thor/Loki, Steve/Bucky, Tony/Strange) and several non-explicit pairings (Valkyrie/Bruce/Natasha, Vision/Wanda, Gamora/Quill, one that's a secret and others I'm probably forgetting). The overall rating for this fic is Explicit, but this first chapter is Mature.
> 
> Title and summary quote are from "War Pigs/Luke's Wall" by Black Sabbath. Thanks to my beloved [ravenfyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenfyre) for playing beta, sounding board and sanity check to my crazy on this project. Visit me on [Tumblr!](http://godofhammers-ao3.tumblr.com)

Sunlight shone down from a clear blue sky, warming the earth to tease out the aroma of sweet grass as a breeze played over the fields, rolling the blades in gentle, sweeping waves. The sound of rustling grass was broken only by the babbling of a brook as it flowed over rock and pebble, winding its way toward a greater, wilder river in the distance. There was no bird call, no hum of insects or chatter of rodents and as Thor rose from where he lay, he wondered at that. The valley around him seemed to be bursting with life, yet utterly devoid of it all at once.

Brow furrowed in confusion, he turned slowly to take in the high mountains, rough and beautiful in their majesty where they rose out of a sprawling forest. A golden hall standing high and proud at his back was the only sign of habitation in all that he could see, and Thor was _certain_ that he’d been here before, many times before in fact, yet never before had it seemed so...empty.

And then there was the tree.

It rose impossibly high before the hall, standing adjacent to the doors as though a reflection of the world tree carved upon them. But this tree was not Yggdrasil, for it was oak and only half of it lived, lush and verdant. The other half was blackened and bare, twisted and lovely in its own way, but frozen from root to twig. This too was painfully familiar to him, though incongruent with this place, leaving Thor cautious as he approached the tree to slowly lay his hand upon the living half, staring up into the immense expanse above.

 _“Anything made by you is too stubborn to die,”_ a voice whispered in his mind and Thor _remembered_.

“Loki,” he said softly, then again louder as he pulled away from the tree, his sole eye searching the empty fields. “ _Loki!”_

“Not once,” Loki began coldly and Thor whirled to face him. “Not even _once_ could you do as you were meant to.” His face was a mask of icy wrath that chilled Thor even as his heart leapt to see him there, moving toward him until Loki stepped back and spat, “Do not even _think_ to touch me.”

“Loki, please,” Thor pleaded softly, though he halted his advance. “What happened? Where are we?”

Scoffing at him, Loki shook his head. “So many nights you spent here and still you do not see it for what it is?” he asked mockingly. “Come now, brother…you can do better than that.”

Jaw tightening, Thor looked at the golden hall rising behind the trickster, at the fertile fields and rolling hills. It was peaceful, _beautiful_ …almost like- “Valhalla…” he realized, then looked down at himself as though expecting to find some mortal wound. “But I… _we_ are not dead.” Though he stated it as fact, he felt uncertain of the truth of his words, a thread of fear winding about his heart.

The brittle mask of Loki’s contemptuous wrath chipped away to hint at the terror that shrouded his heart. “Try to remember,” he said, sounding worn and weary.

Though he wanted to demand that Loki desist in this veil of secrecy, Thor closed his eye and did as was bade of him, brows drawing together as he sifted his memories. He remembered Ragnarok and the _Foundation_ , their passage across the void and _Loki_ …hands and lips and the slide of skin, countless stolen moments spent consuming one another. He remembered the creation of the tree on a distant world and losing himself there, his soul scattered to the winds until Loki gathered it up again. Remembered the long covetous moment in which Loki had held Thor completely within his power.

Thor remembered feeling at peace in a way he’d never known from that point, hope furled in his chest so that it did not feel a fragile, delicate thing. And yet that had proved to be an illusion and Thor’s breath stole from him as though he were being dropped back into a frigid Midgardian sea as he remembered _Thanos_.

Though the artificial atmosphere of the ship was far removed from the wealth of air and vapor that enfolded Earth, Thor had instinctively drawn a portion of it round him like a shroud as he stepped back through the wizard’s portal and into the hangar of the _Foundation_. He had no way of knowing what to expect as he did so, but the charge of lightning crackled readily over his skin and across his vision.

The hangar was a blackened ruin, the hull rent in many places where the invading force had torn through. At some point the electrical grid for this sector, or perhaps the entire ship, had been hit; the cavernous space lit now only by battery charged emergency lamps and the occasional spark from damaged cables that dangled threateningly from the torn bulkheads. Even without the little light there was, Thor would have easily seen Loki, awash as he was in the blue glow of the Tesseract. His heart leapt briefly to see that he was still alive and whole, but it was but a moment’s joy and then he was moving without a thought, leaping across the distance with a crash of thunder to launch himself at the titan Loki stood opposite.

Though his expression had been placid, a look of horror crossed Loki’s face as he caught sight of Thor’s approach, too rapid and too _loud_ to have any hope of diverting him in his course. The lightning arrived before Thor did, but the titan seemed utterly unaffected by it as violet light flared from a gauntleted fist and the hulking form instead moved with preternatural speed to catch him. It happened so quickly that Thor didn’t realize he’d been pulled from the air like an insect until powerful fingers squeezed slowly about his skull. A wash of agony spread out from the contact and tore a snarl of pain from Thor’s throat as his body went limp at the onslaught.

 _“NO!”_ Loki roared at the creature and the pressure paused, but did not lessen.

“No?” the titan’s deep voice inquired calmly. “Is this yours, child?”

His body tense, Loki breathed harshly through his teeth before he ground out, _“Yes._ I would have him back, Lord Thanos.” The words were tight and clipped and they sounded as though they pained him, his voice hoarse.

“Would you.” The pressure increased slightly and Thor’s body jerked at the fresh wave of pain that rolled through him. “Such sentiment from you, Loki…it disappoints me.”

“I would have him returned to me,” Loki repeated and stood firm even as his own body threatened to give out.

“And you offer what in return? The Tesseract? That is already owed to me,” Thanos stated.

“And that debt shall be repaid in full,” Loki promised, lifting the cube between them.

 _“No!”_ Thor cried out.

“Your games bore me, child,” Thanos warned, flexing his fingers so that Thor gasped and sagged again, a sickening crack sounding somewhere in the region of his scarred orbital socket.

Ignoring Thor entirely, Loki looked only at Thanos as he raised his chin and declared, “I know where to find the rest.”

That gave Thanos pause and he slackened his grip slightly as he asked, “All of them?”

“No…” Thor whispered again in denial, horrified at what he’d wrought even as blackness started to overtake his vision. As his mind fell to darkness, the last thing Thor heard was the utter conviction in Loki’s words.

“All of them.”

Loki knew that Thor had remembered when he reopened his eye to stare at him in horror and some small part of the trickster felt keenly satisfied at the obvious pain of his expression. Even still, a wave of relief passed over him that Thor seemed not to have suffered any lasting damage from his thoughtless attack on Thanos and the solace he took from that burned at Loki; a poison he wished he could draw from his being and be done with.

 _Weeks_ of planning, of lies and manipulation and all for _nothing_ because Thor was _here._ He wanted to rage at him, to rend flesh from bone and let naught but vitriol and wrath spill from his mouth, to burden Thor with all that he’d done, all that he’d _sacrificed_.

Even now, Loki could distantly feel the soul deep hurt of his physical form as Thanos’ glyph at his back was repaired of the damage done to it in the course of his death on Svarthalheim. He hadn’t known when he’d let his mind drift free from the immediacy of the tortuous process that he could find his way here to Valhalla, but in calling the souls of the glorious dead to him a pathway had apparently formed. It was a small comfort to know that he no longer needed physical contact with his king to venture here, for it was unlikely he’d ever see the fool in person again.

“Loki, you _cannot_ ,” Thor began and Loki laughed at him.

“Of course I can,” he countered easily. “And more than that I _will_ , Thor. Did I not make it clear to you all that I would do in your name?” Loki gave Thor a cruel, mirthless smile and hated how much he wanted him even now, hated the sentiment that would burn the universe.

“He will kill me besides, you know this,” Thor said vehemently, reaching for him. “And he’ll kill _you_ when he realizes you’ve lied to him…you cannot know where they all are. I myself spent the better part of two years searching them out. _No one_ knows where all six of them rest.”

Loki drew back from the reach of his hand and snapped, “Then I suppose I will have to _find_ them! You should have considered the consequences _before_ you followed me to this end, fool.”

A feeling beyond the simple concept of pain ripped through his being and Loki arched tight as a bowstring, flickering in and out of view for a long, tortuous moment as his mind struggled to process it. He distantly heard Thor call out his name in alarm, felt the warm circle of his arms as his body went limp, too overwhelmed to feel much comfort in being held by the vibrant promise of the thunder god’s soul.

_‘You think you know pain?’_

“Loki? Loki, what has happened?” Thor asked him urgently and as though from a great distance, Loki heard a small voice reply, “Father demands improvements…” Hold tightening, Thor went rigid with tension and Loki pushed against him as his mind started to clear, the agony receding.

“Release me,” Loki said softly, though in truth he wanted little more than to bask in the life of him while he was able.

Thor hesitated, the contact between their souls in this place an equal comfort to his own troubled mind, but then he slackened his hold. “That… _thing_ is _not_ your father, Loki.”

Shaking his head, Loki frowned at him, stepping back on unsteady legs. “What are you talking about?”

Brow furrowed in confusion, Thor regarded him carefully. “Do you not remember speaking just now?”

Loki felt chilled by the question and it was not the primal comfort that the kiss of ice usually left in him. “The Maw,” he murmured angrily to himself, even as he felt fear grip at his heart.

“Loki, what-“

“I must go,” he cut Thor off, shaking his head. “I can’t risk staying here now.”

“Wait!” Thor protested, looking almost panicked as he caught at his arm, restoring the connection between their souls again. “Please, Loki. Do not leave me…not again.”

Looking into his face, Loki drank in the sight of him as he had denied himself since Thor had returned to the _Foundation_ , the contact between them like a balm on the ragged edges of his mind. Taking hold of his jaw, he leaned in and kissed him once, wishing that he could lay him out and devour him, that he could turn back the clock a week, a day…even an hour. Thor cupped Loki’s neck and they stood together between the tree and the golden hall for a moment that was everything and all too brief.

Drawing away from Thor, Loki shook his head in bitter defeat, giving him a hollow look. “I wish you had stayed on Earth,” he said honestly, then he pulled himself away from the peace and beauty of Valhalla and into the ruin of his flesh.

“There you are,” the Maw crooned in satisfaction, cupping Loki’s face in a mockery of affection. “I worried that you had abandoned us again, brother.” He lightly traced the lines of his face where he kept Loki suspended in his power, careful to avoid the long fragments of ether where they pierced his brow like a crown. “How curious you are… Much has changed in you.”

“Funny,” Loki gasped, his lip curling in a pained sneer. “I think you’re…the first one…to say so.”

“Is it done?” Thanos asked as he approached them and the Maw withdrew his hand to bow deferentially.

“It was not without effort, but I have repaired him, Lord Thanos,” he gestured at Loki, lifting and turning him to display the restoration he’d done to the rune. “His flesh does not yield as it did. In his true form it seems to have…calcified.”

“Why?”

The Maw hesitated, then reluctantly said, “I’m afraid that I am not well versed in the biology of the Jötnar. They are a primitive people…hardly of any note.” At Thanos’ quelling look, the Maw quickly spun Loki around again to face them. “And what do _you_ know of this?”

Loki laughed at them, even as a feeling of dreadful _knowing_ crept into his heart. “What…would I…know of them? Odin…stole me away…in infancy.” He grimaced as the Maw pressed the shards of ether further into his mind, stiffening and gasping for breath as the sharp ache of it stole the air from his lungs.

Thanos watched him dispassionately, then gestured very slightly. “Enough. It is of little consequence. He and I must speak.”

Though the Maw’s countenance pursed in displeasure, he reluctantly withdrew the blades of ether. “My lord, you know that I would never question your will, but I must advise caution in placing your trust in Loki again. He has failed you before.”

“As have all my children,” Thanos said dismissively and the Maw bristled in defense.

“I have _never_ -“

“Not yet, Maw, but you will. To be met with both success and failure…that is balance.”

Still looking displeased to be already branded a disappointment before his due, the Maw finally withdrew his instruments and let Loki drop unceremoniously to the floor. “I can only offer my counsel where I see it most beneficial. We already know that one of the stones was last known to be on Earth, lost to us there by _this_ one.” He gestured distastefully at Loki before continuing, “Without the Mind Stone, I cannot be sure of his loyalty.”

“Thanos doesn’t need to be assured of my loyalty, Maw,” Loki said as he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. “He has something more useful.”

Amused, Thanos smiled and inclined his head toward Loki in agreement. “Leverage. Come…there is something I wish to show you.”

Loki could not even begin to draw his illusions about himself to conceal the truth of his parentage, but he bent to take up his discarded cape and refashioned it into a passable tunic with a small, painful push of magic. He had been stripped down to his breeches for the Maw’s procedure and his abused and over-sensitive flesh screamed in protest at the brush of fabric as he dressed, but he felt an instinctual need to cover himself as much as he were able, his hands fisting at his sides with the desire to wrap protectively about his middle. Smirking at the Maw, whose too-keen eyes tracked him with both apathy and envy, Loki drew himself up with false airs and followed Thanos from the room.

“When I invaded Xandar, I was curious to find an Asgardian distress call among the most recent archives of the Nova Corps Mainframe. When I concluded my business there, I went to look upon the ruins of Asgard myself. Long have I imagined looking upon the fabled beauty of it with my own eyes, kept at a distance from all that would tarnish her. Odin’s masterwork,” Thanos said with some small admiration.

“Odin’s _lie_ ,” Loki spat in answer, hating the spark of anguish that rose unbidden at the thought of his father. A fresh wave of wrath at Thor rolled over him to think that Odin and Frigga had let the Tesseract rend them apart for _nothing_. Loki clung to the anger over the sorrow, letting it heat his words. “Would that I burnt it years ago.”

“I guessed that her fall was your doing,” Thanos acknowledged and Loki was perturbed to hear that he sounded almost regretful. “I’m sorry that I was not there to guide you, my child. You tipped the scale too far in your rage. Odin was one of the few beings who truly understood balance, even if he long ago lost the will to see it to fruition.”

Loki’s eyes fell upon the gauntlet Thanos wore, so similar to that which he’d seen displayed time and again over the course of his very long life. Catching his look, Thanos raised the gauntlet, nodding to himself as though Loki had voiced a question aloud.

“This was once Odin’s design, a worthy ambition left by the wayside in the wake of his growing sentimentality. A trait you share, it seems,” Thanos mused and Loki rankled at the comparison.

He stared at the violet ingot settled into the gauntlet, remembering the way that it had swallowed the primal snarl of Thor’s lightning seemingly without effort. Loki had not seen the Tesseract since relinquishing the stone to Thanos, but he expected that before long its cerulean glow would be settled alongside its kin. That a single weapon could hold even _two_ stones within its power was unfathomable, but to think that this might hold all _six_...

“Who made this weapon?” Loki asked softly, a growing sense of unease settling in his chest. The craftsmanship was _familiar_ and alarmingly so. This wasn’t just Odin’s design...it looked as though it had been fashioned _for_ Odin, a tool meant for a King of Asgard. “Where was it forged?”

“I think you already know,” Thanos stated, watching him.

“Nidavellir,” he said numbly. “The gauntlet is of Dwarven make.”

“I admit that I had expected to face Odin and the horde of Asgard when I invaded that realm some time ago, but it seems you were able to aid my endeavors, however unknowingly.” The titan continued in his path through the stark, empty corridors and Loki followed with footsteps that had become leaden with the weight of his knowledge. “Many will suffer needlessly for what you have wrought. Still,” he mused as he led Loki into a chamber lit by the glow of a flickering flame, “there was splendor to be found in Asgard’s ruin.”

As weary as he was, it took effort for Loki not to react to the sight of the Eternal Flame flickering before him, as it had ever done in the heart of Odin’s treasure room. Since calling the dead out of Valhalla, Loki’s stolen vision had been…fractured, as though he could no longer focus on the simple form and function of the physical realm. He didn’t know what that meant, if it was simply that he’d stumbled upon a greater mastery over Heimdall’s mysterious power, but looking upon the flame now with his altered Sight was _not_ as it had been.

“A curious thing, to find a flame burning in the void of space,” Thanos said as he circled the fire slowly, letting his fingers slide along the rim of the brazier.

Loki licked his lips lightly and tore his gaze away from the pulsing, writhing _thing_ he saw within the heart of the flame. He looked to Thanos instead, seeing both the mighty titan and the bleak, _mad_ determination of his tortured soul. “The Eternal Flame,” he named it mildly. “I would have thought it extinguished in the wake of Ragnarok.”

“It would seem that it was not given name so lightly, then,” Thanos mused. He turned from Loki to touch at an interface set in the wall, projecting a number of screens that upon closer inspection seemed to be feeding in from the holding cells. “Too many use such descriptors and yet have no concept of what it truly means to be eternal. To be _infinite_.” Thanos nodded toward one of the video feeds as Loki circled the flame’s brazier to join the titan and he was unsurprised to see Thor there, slumped unconscious within the confines of a cell. “There was a time where you would have sworn an eternity of hatred toward that one.”

His jaw tight, Loki said nothing as he watched the erratic rise and fall of Thor’s chest, the clear sign of life in him despite the blood and bruises flowering over his skin. Knowing that Thanos watched him, he used just enough of his power to make it seem as though his eyes remained on Thor, even as he quickly looked among the other screens to see what else the titan kept in his menagerie.

“I thought you beyond such sentiment, child,” Thanos sighed, brushing his powerful fingers over Loki’s hair in a fatherly caress. “But we all have our flaws…our weaknesses. I will allow this one so long as it serves my purpose.”

The threat was implicit and heavy in the air between them, but Loki had seen something that gave him the faintest flicker of hope that he could come out ahead in this. Already beginning to weave together the threads of a plan, Loki lowered his eyes from where Lady Sif paced the confines of her cell and said, “Knowhere. Set our course for Knowhere.”

“Here we are,” Peter Quill sang out as he thrust his fist into the air. “Born to be kings, we’re the princes of the universe! Here we belong, fighting to survive in a world with the darkest powers!”

The captain of the Milano paused a few beats and then rhythmically rocked his head forward as he pantomimed the performance of an unseen instrument he’d repeatedly insisted was an ‘air guitar’. Drax usually pointed out that it looked as though Quill were fondling an overlarge penis when he did this, but the infamous Destroyer was currently using a small sliver of metal to dig bits of gore from the grooves of his knives, thus missing the performance.

Recently Rocket, whose sense of smell was far keener than theirs, had begun to complain about the stench of rot emanating from the weapons and insisted that Drax do something about it before he chucked the blades out the airlock. Of course he hadn’t intended for Drax to do this in the _cockpit,_ and kept shooting disgusted looks his way, but Gamora couldn’t see why Rocket should be at all surprised. The time they’d spent together since first breaking free of the Kyln had done little to assuage Drax’s complete ignorance toward social intricacies.

“I am immortal, I have inside me blood of kings!”

Gamora watched Quill in bemusement as he continued to sing, the sight of it a tender warmth in her that was undiminished by Mantis swaying to the music behind him, antennae bobbing and weaving. At her back, Gamora could hear the clicking and beeping that were ever present sounds surrounding Groot these days, his interest focused solely on the virtual. She missed when he was still a sapling and would curl up in her lap, gazing up at her with wide, adoring eyes as Gamora explained the best ways in which to disable a Kree without killing them. Perhaps another woman would have delighted a child with gentle, fantastical stories, but that was not who Gamora had been raised to be...nor any of them. They were thieves and smugglers and killers all; a battle-tested family that Gamora would protect to her last breath.

“I have no rival, no man can be my equal!” Quill decried and pointed at Gamora “Take me to the future of your world!”

“Remind me why I let you talk me into this?” she called over the music, quelling the smile that wanted to rise in answer to his antics.

“Because we’re getting _paid_ ,” Rocket crowed eagerly. “For _once_.”

“We’re getting paid to smuggle stolen cargo,” Gamora pointed out. “For an intergalactic crime lord.”

“Exactly,” Quill said in satisfaction. “So when we get there, we don’t have to feel guilty about taking the payment _and_ the cargo _and_ _then_ killing the bad guys!” He counted these off on his fingers as though that somehow changed the fact that the odds were not at all in their favor.

“Except that nothing ever works out that easily,” she pointed out with a sigh. “This is a terrible plan.”

“It’s really less of a plan and more of a working theory,” Quill corrected her with a rakish grin that had her rolling her eyes.

“Did that sound cool in your head?” Rocket wondered archly. “Because it sounds fucking stupid.”

“Hey, I thought you were on my side!” Quill protested.

“Not if you’re going to spout shit like that.”

Drax looked up at this, craning his neck to regard their captain closely before looking to Rocket. “I do not see him spouting shit,” he stated with certainty and Rocket groaned, rolling his eyes.

“We are receiving a call!” Mantis interrupted excitedly, tapping at the screen before her. “It is Nebula!”

Gamora’s smile faded even as her hearts gave a small flutter and Quill caught her eyes knowingly, cutting off the music. It had been more than a year since she’d last heard from her sister and Gamora had truly begun to fear that Nebula had caught up to Thanos at long last. There had been a few nights in that time when she’d dropped the barriers she held tight to her, letting Quill hold her tightly in the circle of his arms as she silently wept, until the dread of what their father would do to her sister should he catch her passed. Gamora never told Quill that sometimes on those rare occasions, a few tears were shed at the thought of what would happen should Nebula _succeed_.

“Pass it to my station,” Gamora instructed quietly, pushing the comm screen more fully before her. An icon blinked at her as Mantis did what she’d asked and Gamora took a calming breath before she tapped it, opening the vid stream. “Nebula.” Her voice came out steadily, but the relief was plain in her tone as she took in her sister’s face, undamaged and whole.

“I found him, Gamora,” Nebula said without preamble, speaking urgently. “It’s happening…he’s going for the stones.”

Stiffening in surprise, Gamora’s hands fisted and she knew that the other Guardians were listening intently. “He’s been going after the stones for years-“

“Not like this,” Nebula cut her off. “He’s decimated Xandar. And Asgard.”

“ _What?_ ” Quill burst out in surprise, gaping over at her. The others were in similar states of disbelief and even the incessant sounds of Groot’s video game had at last gone quiet.

“That…no, he...” Gamora wanted desperately to believe that Nebula was wrong, but her sister only shook her head.

“I’ve seen it, Gamora. Xandar is little more than a collection of ruins and Asgard is an asteroid field.”

“The Power Stone,” she realized, putting a hand to her mouth. “He must have taken the Power Stone and used it on Asgard.”

“If anyone had a stone on them, it was definitely those a-holes,” Quill grumbled from his seat. “They’re almost as stuck up their own asses as the Sovereign.”

“Not anymore,” Drax pointed out solemnly.

Chest tight with unease, Gamora regarded her sister closely. “Nebula…where are you now?”

“I tracked the _Sanctuary II_ from Asgard and caught up to our father as he was destroying a star cruiser registered to someone called the Grandmaster.”

“Hey, I’ve heard of that guy,” Rocket said, hopping up in his seat and turning around to face Gamora. “Real fancy assclown what likes to put out pricey bounties for new and exciting fighters for his ‘Contest of Champions’. Groot and I always avoided those jobs on account of rumors that the bounty hunters never came back from delivery.”

“That assclown fancy enough that he might have had an Infinity Stone up his sleeve?” Quill asked him and the raccoon shrugged uncertainly.

“Nebula,” Gamora repeated more firmly, never taking her eyes off of her sister’s. “ _Where. Are. You_.” Nebula didn’t answer her and Gamora shook her head a little in denial. “Tell me you aren’t on that ship.”

“He could have three stones already,” Nebula replied softly. “And now he’s set a course to Knowhere.”

“Nowhere?” Mantis asked in confusion. “He must be going _somewhere_.”

“No, _Knowhere_ ,” Quill said impatiently. “As in the shitty mining colony on the outer reach. Why would Thanos be going there?”

“Well the Collector’s already tried buying an Infinity Stone offa _us_. Stands to reason he might’ve done it to some other chumps,” Rocket pointed out.

“Nebula, _please_ ,” Gamora pleaded softly. “You _can’t_ stay there. If he catches you…”

“If our father gets the stones, it won’t matter what happens to me. Half the universe will be dead. Please, sister…help me end this,” Nebula begged her and Gamora tightened her hands around the edges of the comm screen, nodding once. Her sister’s cybernetic form relaxed fractionally in relief as she nodded in return. “I have to go. I’ll contact you if I learn anything more.”

Gamora let out an unsteady breath as the call cut out, closing her eyes briefly as her hearts pounded in her ears. When she opened them again, Quill was looking at her and he nodded once at whatever he saw in her face.

“Change of plans, folks!” he said and flipped off the auto-pilot to take over the navigation. “Looks like we’re headed to Knowhere!”

“What, the rest of us don’t get a say in this?” Rocket demanded heatedly, his claws digging into the leather of his seat.

“I am Groot,” Groot murmured under his breath and Mantis gasped at the rudeness.

“I meant the _adults_ , genius! Ain’t no way you’re going up against freaking _Thanos!”_

“I am _Groot!_ ” Groot protested angrily and Rocket snarled back, “ _Because I said so!_ ”

“If Thanos is indeed headed to Knowhere, then that is our only clear course,” Drax said with fierce determination, gripping his knives tightly. “At last I will have the chance to avenge my wife and daughter.”

Rocket looked around at the rest of them, but quickly saw that he was alone in his protest and snarled, striking his headrest before he slumped back in his seat. “I really hate you guys sometimes, you know that?” he grumbled, but quickly started working out a new flight plan in for them. “We were finally gonna get _paid_.”

Her hearts heavy with resolve, Gamora stared out into the vast reaches of space before them and thought of all she stood to lose…no matter the outcome.

Time stretched interminably from one moment to the next, a particularly vicious brand of torture with which Loki was all too familiar with. The strange magic the Maw had worked around Thanos was beneficial to the titan and his children, allowing them excess time to work out their machinations, but when one was held prisoner it threatened to break the mind. Having been on both ends of that particular scale, Loki was half-tempted to swear his fidelity to Thanos once more. He dared not return to Valhalla until he was sure he was free of the Maw’s tenterhooks, though being trapped with naught but his thoughts and the thing he would not think about was becoming _intolerable_.

Though his cell had far more amenities than Thor’s to be certain, it was a cell nonetheless. Much like the accommodations he’d fared in under Odin’s tender mercies, the confines of his room prevented Loki from projecting his mind or his illusions beyond its walls. Admittedly, it was taking an inordinate amount of energy to hold the illusion of his Asgardian form now, still recovering as he was from both his efforts with the Tesseract and the Maw’s reparation of the glyph marring his back.

_‘His flesh does not yield as it did.’_

Mouth pressed tight, Loki pushed all thoughts of the Maw and his words from his head, focusing instead on the plan he would take action upon when opportunity presented itself. _If_ opportunity presented itself…

Drifting as he was through his thoughts, Loki did not immediately take notice of the waifish woman who appeared before him. Hallucinations were not an uncommon thing when the mind was left with endless awareness and little in the way of physical outlet. When he did finally look upon her, he wondered briefly if this were some new trick of the Maw’s, but Loki’s fractured Sight gave him a glimpse of the vibrant, red pulse of her soul that the parasite was nowhere near clever enough to conjure.

“Who are you?” he asked curiously, his voice hoarse from either screaming or disuse. Without knowing how long he’d been there, it was hard to judge.

Loki watched in bemusement as the woman turned in surprise to look at him where he sat on the floor of his cell. Her brow furrowed as though she were trying to place him and her eyes lit with recognition after a few seconds.

“I…know you,” she said slowly. “You…were in the archives.”

“Was I?” Loki wondered and tilted his head to consider her.

“New York,” she said more confidently, though she took a cautious step back from him. “You are Thor’s brother. Loki.”

Irritation pulled at him like an old scar to be known only as _Thor’s brother_ , but at the same time the mere mention of him made Loki want to tear from the room to find the fool. He inclined his head toward her and said, “You must be from Earth. Another new Avenger? You seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate.” He shifted his weight to sit a little more upright and grimaced at the pain that sparked through his flesh. “I don’t suppose you’ve come on an ill-advised rescue mission.”

“Rescue mission?” she asked in confusion, looking around the confines of his cell. “Why would I rescue you?”

That sparked a harsh laugh from him, grating at his throat even as he shook his head and grinned sharply at her. “I didn’t mean _me_ ,” he assured her scathingly.

Her brow furrowed in confusion and Loki flinched as he felt clumsy, yet _powerful_ tendrils of energy reach for his mind. She reminded him of Thor, all raw power and little finesse, as though she used her ability on instinct alone. Loki turned her from his mind without effort and glared fiercely at her for her troubles.

“You’ll have to do better than _that_ , little witch,” Loki snarled, affronted that the waif should presume to think she could best him, even in his current state.

Her eyes widened with realization and she gasped out, “I felt you this morning.” Pale and haunted, the witch wrapped her arms around herself, red energy limning her form as though her soul were leaking through to the physical realm. “Like a voice…or a _thousand_ voices…all _screaming_ in my head…”

Loki’s eyes narrowed as he studied her and after a few moment’s hesitation, he tentatively reached for her mind, feeling cautiously at the edges of the memory. The horror was all too familiar to him, though in his own mind it seemed to have happened days or weeks ago. He shuddered as he felt the yawning hunger of the Tesseract, the desperate terror of the Asgardians fleeing the Outriders, the dread of Thanos’ arrival. A thread of horror and deep despair wove through the premonition and Loki’s throat closed to realize that it had belonged to _Thor_.

He paled and shuddered, pulling free of her mind. “You said that happened this morning?” he asked her hollowly.

“Yes,” she whispered and stared at him, wide-eyed and trembling faintly.

Had it truly been a mere matter of _hours_ since Thanos had overtaken the _Foundation_? Since Loki had tricked Thor into what he’d intended to be a one-way trip to Earth? Sitting forward slightly, despite how it pained him, Loki looked at her intently. “ _When are you?_ ” he demanded vehemently, because he had to be certain.

The witch looked shocked and almost _terrified_ by the question and Loki swore emphatically when she vanished as suddenly as she’d come, gone so abruptly that she might never have been there. _Had_ she been there? Had Loki’s mind finally broken?

“Who were you talking to?” a voice demanded from just outside his cell and Loki’s jaw tightened with distaste.

“Myself, it would seem,” he replied easily, leaning back against the wall of his cell as though it cost him nothing to do so. “There is not, after all, anyone else worthy enough of my conversation currently on board.” He smiled wickedly even as the thing standing outside his cell scowled at him and gritted its teeth, startlingly white beneath a tight swath of crimson.

“Still so assured of yourself, Loki, despite all your many failures,” it jeered. “One would think being held prisoner would temper your tongue.”

“I suppose that is what separates the gods from mere mortals like yourself, Herr Schmidt,” Loki derided it with a wide grin, because the Red Skull was as easy to play now as he had ever been.

Johann Schmidt had already been in Thanos’ company for decades before Loki had come upon the titan in his fall from Asgard. The former head of HYDRA had stayed alive by virtue of his knowledge of Earth and her treasures, both known and supposed, but it wasn’t until shortly before Loki’s arrival on _Sanctuary I_ that Thanos began to put his plans to action. Schmidt had long believed that _he_ would lead the campaign against Earth, but Loki had been more than happy to dissuade Thanos of the notion, winning the right to scepter and army by besting the mortal at every turn. Twisted by science he might be, but the Red Skull was still terribly _human_ at his core, enhanced by _human_ means…and Schmidt resented that fact more than anything.

“No _mere_ mortal could live so long as I have, undiminished by the ravages of time!” Schmidt snarled at him, slamming his hand against the shimmering force field that made up the viewport into Loki’s cell. “I have evolved beyond the wildest imaginings of the human race and I will lead them to greater purpose. As has _always_ been my right!”

“Did I touch a nerve, there? I admit that I find it’s rather hard _not_ to, given the exposed nature of your face,” he pointed out scathingly. “How fortunate for the good Captain to have his own epidermis so… _undiminished_.”

Having had well over a millennium to perfect the subtle nuances of his own superiority complex, Loki had always found Schmidt’s attitude to be childish and petty by comparison. Still, it brought him a fair amount of pleasure to see the twisted shell of a man with his oily, blackened soul seethe at the very mention of Steve Rogers. His smile grew even wider when he saw Schmidt go for the panel to open the door between them, presenting precisely the opening he required to enact his plan.

“If you will not stay your tongue, I shall do it _for_ you,” Schmidt threatened, incensed with such incandescent rage that it was remarkable he didn’t manage to redden to an even deeper hue.

Loki was already at the door when it opened and slipped through it unseen just as Schmidt charged in toward the illusion of himself, wounded and laughing on the floor. Honestly, it was the simplest of all his tricks and yet it never failed him. The Red Skull whirled about as he realized his plight, but Loki merely smirked and tapped the panel to lock him inside. Would that he could stay and gloat…but there was much to do and little time in which to accomplish it. He doubted that anyone cared much about the whereabouts of Schmidt, but someone would undoubtedly come for him the moment they reached Knowhere, if not sooner.

He was rapidly burning through his reserves to conceal his movements through the immense ship, having to keep to his natural form to preserve energy, so his first priority was the Eternal Flame. Loki knew how to make use of its power in _theory_ , but regardless of whether or not it would suit his purpose as he believed, it was essential that he remove it from the field. He had no idea what it was he’d seen in the heart of the flame before, but he knew with certainty that leaving it in Thanos’ care would lead only to deeper trouble than they were already in.

Moving as quickly as he was, he very nearly walked past the damnable wizard without notice, but the fact that Loki could see only the soul and _not_ the physical form caught up with him and he halted in his tracks to stare at the incorporeal form of Stephen Strange, woven together in a vibrant geometry of jade and amber. The man seemed disoriented as he looked back at Loki, brow furrowed as though struggling to make sense of him.

Sighing in frustration, Loki rolled his eyes upward. “First the witch and now _you_ ,” he complained lowly. “Is Earth particularly boring at the moment, or do you new Avengers simply wander about the cosmos?”

“Loki?” Strange asked, seeming to become a little more focused. “You’re very…blue… Where… What is this place?”

“Nowhere you want to be,” Loki assured him, jaw tight with irritation at the reminder that his true form was exposed while his efforts were spent concealing himself in the physical realm.

"I can’t…” He shook his head as though to clear it. “How long have I been here?”

“If you don’t know then I can hardly tell you,” Loki pointed out. “One’s concept of time in this place is…inconsistent with reality. How did you come to be here?”

Strange touched his fingers lightly to his brow as he tried to remember, clearly affected by the miasma of seemingly immutable time the Maw had lain over the ship. “Thor,” he said after a few moments, calling his mind to order. “I opened a portal for Thor.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed at this. “The _precise_ thing that I did not wish for you to do. Well done.”

Giving him an irritated look, Strange glowered and said, “He was _insistent_. I’ve never opened a portal outside of Earth before…at least not in the same dimension.” He thought it over and then sighed. “The Mind Stone. Something about using it to direct the portal…dislodged me.”

“How very bothersome. Do have fun with that,” Loki said dismissively and turned to continue on his path toward the Eternal Flame.

“Hang on a second, you’re one _hundred_ percent the reason that I’m stuck here,” Strange insisted firmly, his eyes narrowed as he followed him.

“And you would surely _not_ be here presently if you had simply _done as I asked_ ,” Loki told him scathingly, the banked rage toward the current situation rising in him again. “Consider finding your _own_ way home to be your penance.”

“Look, douchebag,” Strange began. “I don’t work for you _or_ your brother and helping out the pair of you has apparently landed me on the ass end of the cosmos. So either help me get back to Earth or be prepared for a really _pissed off_ incorporeal sorcerer getting overly involved in whatever it is you’re doing here.”

Loki was fairly determined to ignore him, but then he paused. “Say I _do_ help you. If you were returned to your body on Earth, could you open another portal here?”

Strange sighed in obvious annoyance, but inclined his head in affirmation. “In _theory_ now that I’ve been here, I could portal back so long as I retain its image in my mind’s eye.”

“So if I send you back to Earth, you can return Thor there,” Loki said determinedly.

The sorcerer’s mouth tightened somewhat and he regarded Loki closely a moment. “You know, if you and your brother could work out your issues without involving the Earth in any way, I would _really_ appreciate it.”

“Can you do it or not, wizard?” Loki asked him impatiently.

“I’m _not_ a-“ He closed his eyes and sighed, shaking his head. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Strange decided irritably. “ _Yes_. If you help me return to my body, I will repay the favor by getting Thor back to Earth. Do we have a deal?”

Nodding, Loki waited until a pair of Chitauri guards had passed the place where he stood unseen, then gestured for Strange to follow. They reached the chamber that held the Eternal Flame without further incident and Loki spent a few moments recoding the door to prevent anyone interrupting them. When he was done, he turned to the flame and found Strange staring into it, circling the brazier slowly.

“What is it?” he asked, brow furrowed.

“What do you see?” Loki countered.

The sorcerer frowned at him, then looked back at the flame, shaking his head slowly. “I just see fire, but… I _feel_ something. Like it’s trying to draw me in or…” he drifted off a moment, then moved further away from the brazier, looking unsettled. “Or take me…home. But not, I think, the same home _I’m_ thinking of.”

Loki’s brow furrowed pensively and he stared at the pulsing thing at the heart of the flame. “This was one of my father’s most prized treasures. Legend tells that he originally hid it away on Muspelheim, but was forced to reclaim it after the fire demon Surtur realized its power and bound it to his crown, prophesying that he would use it to enact Ragnarok upon Asgard. It’s called the Eternal Flame.”

“Odin was also the one to conceal the Tesseract on Earth,” Strange said slowly. “Are you suggesting that this is another Infinity Stone?”

“I used it to resurrect Surtur after Thor slayed him…and he became so immensely powerful that he destroyed my homeworld in a single blow,” Loki said in answer, his eyes meeting Strange’s over the flame. “Whatever it’s true nature, I hardly want it to remain _here_.”

“Not so sure I want _you_ to have it either,” he said pointedly, but made no move to stop Loki as he stepped onto the dais.

Smirking wickedly at Strange, Loki gave the mortal a lascivious wink and then slid his hands into the fire to cup around the pulsating energy at its core. For a moment, it was as though the universe…stopped. The hum of the ship and crackle of flame had gone silent so that all Loki could hear was the catch in his breath and the flutter of a heartbeat as something seemed to click in place.

“Oh,” was all he said and then his eyes rolled back into his head as the energy absorbed into his flesh.

It _hurt_. Every fiber of his being burned as though aflame and the pain was _exquisite_. In his vision he could see only a vast, endless field of stars, glittering at him from the far reaches of the cosmos. They pulsed and flickered like beating hearts and Loki realized they weren’t the stars at all, but _souls_. Tens of trillions of souls, all laid bare to his purview. _This_ was Heimdall’s true Sight and Loki felt five times a fool for not realizing how badly he’d damaged it in the transferal.

With effort, he let the cosmic span of the universe fade from view, focusing back on the room before him until the walls of _Sanctuary II_ reformed about his person. The fire had gone out, leaving the room lit only by a cold, synthetic glow from the recesses of the bulkhead. Strange had backed well away from the dais and taken up a defensive stance, watching Loki warily as he looked around.

“Are you done with whatever the hell _that_ was?” he asked testily, brow furrowed.

Loki looked down at himself, effortlessly bringing his Asgardian disguise to bear over Jötun blue and feeling stronger than he had in weeks. “Oh yes,” he said in satisfaction and turned his attention to the empty brazier. “Must do something about this, however.”

The well of his seidr restored, Loki conjured a fire to replace the Eternal Flame, pleased by how little exertion it required. It would take a small, continuous trickle of power to keep the flame alive, but it hardly bothered him at present and an illusion would not suffice. He didn’t need it to last, he only needed some time. An awareness prickled at his neck and Loki stiffened, whirling to look at the door, then _through_ it and cursed at the sickening, toxic smear of the Maw approaching.

“Don’t let him see you!” he hissed at Strange and his eyes darted about. Spying a small duct, he strode toward it and reached within himself for the serpent, changing form between one step and the next.

“What?” Strange asked in surprise, drifting after him. “Don’t let _who_ see me? Loki! Where-”

Slithering quickly into the duct, Loki didn’t wait to see whether or not Strange had heeded his warning, for he needed the head start and the wizard would prove an excellent distraction should he be caught. As much as he desired the opportunity to have at the Maw now that he was restored, Loki had not yet examined the alterations the magical parasite had made to his glyph. Ebony Maw was infamous for his love of mental manipulations and Loki had, in fact, learned a great deal from him on the subject…enough to be wary now. Serpentine tongue flickering out to taste the air, Loki instead used his expanded Sight to find what he was looking for and slid off through the conduits, heading for the brig.

Doctor Stephen Strange felt himself justified in saying that he unequivocally _loathed_ Asgardians.

Odin, at least, had been congenial in the brief time he’d known the All-Father, if arrogant and patronizing to a degree one could only achieve by ruling the Nine Realms for millennia. His _sons_ , on the other hand, had caused Strange nothing but strife since the moment they’d appeared in his life. Case in point, thanks to Thor’s mulishness, Strange was stranded in the astral dimension on the wrong side of the galaxy with no earthly idea how he was supposed to return home.

_‘Don’t let him see you.’_

Unnerved by Loki’s warning and frustrated at himself for not demanding to be sent back the moment the trickster had used the so-called Eternal Flame to rejuvenate himself, Strange drifted high in the vaulted chamber, almost completely submerged into the bulkhead. He had attempted to follow Loki, but had almost immediately lost sight of his serpentine form amidst the shadows of the ship’s inner workings. Instead he had returned to the chamber bearing Loki’s false flame against his better judgement to see who exactly it was he should be avoiding.

It wasn’t a good plan. It was a fucking _moronic_ plan that was likely to get him killed if he weren’t careful, but Strange’s greatest strength and weakness had always been that he _craved_ knowledge and the lack of it needled at him now. The very idea of wandering blindly through the ship like some kind of wayward ghost was utterly intolerable, so the least he could do was to learn who his enemies were.

Curious though he was, Strange did not try his luck by simply pushing his head out of the room to catch a glimpse of whoever was outside the room. His awareness of time had started to slide now that he didn’t have Loki to focus on, which made it difficult to judge how long it was taking them to get in past whatever it was Loki had done to the door…but Strange was inquisitive, not suicidal. Whoever this person was, Loki had clearly been perturbed by their presence, suggesting that he ought to proceed with caution.

Apparently fed up with the locking mechanism, the creature on the other side finally sliced through the door itself with an effort of will, stepping neatly through the wreckage to look about the chamber. A pair of Chitauri made to follow him through the gap, but he stayed them with a glance and they remained at the ruined doorway. The alien was slight and unassuming, but Strange knew all too well how looks could be deceiving and stayed well out of sight. This being, whoever he was, wore confidence about him like a cloak, assured of his power in a way Strange recognized from the Ancient One and Kaecilius and many of the masters at Kamar-Taj.

He used to see that same self-assurance in the mirror on the way to the operating theater. The last few years had been peppered with enough humbling experiences to leave him at least a _little_ wary of becoming overconfident again.

The alien walked the room slowly, circling the brazier as he did, his hands folded primly together at his back. “In all my long years of service to Thanos, I have never failed him,” he mused, tilting his head to regard Loki’s conjured flame. “And now this…this _would-be king_ so readily gains his favor again, despite his _obvious_ betrayal. What’s to be done about that?”

A nervous prickle of warning crept along Strange’s astral form, because the creature was clearly _alone_ but for the guards he had so readily dismissed just moments ago. Trusting his instincts to _run_ , Strange started to pull away into the bulkhead, but before he could make a move to leave in earnest, blinding pain lanced suddenly through him. He cried out in surprise and stared down at his chest in shock where a shard of ethereal energy had run him through. With a sickening tug, Strange felt himself being pulled down through the chamber, paralyzed by the debilitating power arcing throughout the core of his consciousness.

Another half dozen of the ethereal shards came into view about the alien as he drew Strange ever closer, a smile breaking over the vaguely humanoid features of his face. “Well, traveler?” he asked genially and flicked a finger to spear Strange through again, pinning him in place like an insect. “I’d love to know _your_ thoughts on the matter.”

“Go to _hell_ ,” Strange ground out with effort, convulsing as a fresh wave of agony overtook him.

Pain was an old friend, but all that he had suffered in life, all the many ways in which he had died in the Dark Dimension, could in no way compare to having tortures inflicted on his _soul_. If only it would _stop_ he would be _more_ than happy to tell him whatever he wanted to know about Loki. The sudden thought had Strange shaking his head slightly as though to knock it loose, because however much he disliked the trickster, he _refused_ to collude with this _thing_.

“There _is_ power in you, after all,” the alien commented, a thread of annoyance in his tone. “Not what I was sensing earlier, I think. More…an _infantile_ suggestion of greatness, but still…power nonetheless.”

Thin slivers of ether slid towards Strange, arranging themselves about his head like a crown. He tried to keep his face impassive as they neared ever closer, until they were pressing on his psyche, digging in so that finally an agonized roar tore free of him. All concept of the world faded away and Strange struggled to retain himself, to remember that this wasn’t a physical form, that he _shouldn’t feel pain_.

“It’s alright if you need to fight it a while,” the creature cooed mockingly, leaning in close to him. “We have time yet.”

Sif, to her credit, did not so much as flinch when Loki’s long, black coils dropped into her cell, her formerly keen eyes now hollow and bleak as they stared at him. The once proud warrior sat slumped against the wall much as Loki had in his own cell, her long, dark hair hanging into her face, features gaunt and pallid. She’d been stripped of her armor, and her tunic and leggings were tattered and nearly black with filth, though she’d been fortunate in that she’d retained her boots. Loki felt a trickle of doubt that she would be up to the task he required of her, but as he cast a concealing illusion about them and shifted forms, she came suddenly alive.

“ _You!_ ” Sif snarled harshly and lunged for him with fingers clawed. “You treacherous _worm!_ ”

Though Sif was a fierce combatant, her rage could not overcome the weakened state of her physiology and Loki ducked away from her easily, holding up his hands to placate her. “Now, now, Sif…is that any way to greet an old friend?”

“Friend? _Friend?_ ” she demanded harshly, then barked out a coarse laugh. “Would that you had stayed dead, _Laufeyson_.”

The barb bothered him more than he cared to admit and when the warrior sprang at him again, Loki caught hold of her, holding Sif firmly in place. She roared at him, struggling in his hold with surprising strength given her current condition and he sighed in exasperation. “We don’t have _time_ for this,” he ground out and pushed his palm against her forehead to draw up her memories.

Following the Convergence, Loki had set Lady Sif to the task of finding the remaining Infinity Stones, wanting every possible advantage close at hand should Thanos learn of his resurrection. It had served a dual purpose, of course, for Sif was easily the most suspicious of Thor’s companions and would likely reveal him if she remained on Asgard overlong. Loki not heard from her for some years now, as he’d bade her to secrecy of the highest order and instructed her to return only if absolutely necessary.

Looking through her memories now, Loki saw that Sif had followed rumors of the Power Stone to Xandar, confirming what Nova Prime had already told him. As she’d believed ‘Odin’s’ priority to be the security of the stones, Sif had continued on in her quest and made her way to Midgard rather than return with the news. Curiously, Lady Sif’s memories of _why_ she had made for Midgard, and just as abruptly _left_ , were muddled and layered over with an intricate pattern of spellwork unlike he’d ever seen. Had he the time, Loki was certain he could unravel it, but it told him enough as it was. Whoever it was that held an Infinity Stone on Earth was a magic user and Loki already had a fairly strong suspicion as to who _that_ might be.

For a long time, Sif’s search proved fruitless after that, and though Loki could see that she found other paths back to Earth, the spell upon her mind would not let her follow them back there. More than a year passed and at last Sif began to find threads of a greater weaving, a story that told of one who had seen the power of the Soul Stone and rent it asunder for fear of its terrible purpose. But as close as she’d come, none of it mattered when the news reached her.

Odin dead. Asgard destroyed.

Unable to believe the rumors rippling through the known universe, unable to accept that she had not been present for Ragnarok, Lady Sif had abandoned her quest and returned home. Seeing the ruin of Asgard again through her eyes cut Loki more deeply than he would have expected, made worse to feel her despair like a tangible thing.

It was there among the asteroid field that had once been the jewel of the cosmos that Thanos had found her, but even in her desolation, Lady Sif had been loyal to her king, to Asgard. In the weeks that had passed as an eternity while kept prisoner, she had never uttered a word about her quest, never given any indication that she even knew what an Infinity Stone _was_ , much less where they might be found. Sif had used her sorrow like a shield, had sworn to herself that she would fight now for her people as she had been unable to do in their bitter end.

Her body went slack in Loki’s arms as he forced her to relive her memories, throat closing against the tears she would not allow herself to shed. Gently, Loki lowered Sif to the floor of the cell and as he did he felt for the curious energy that now lay within him and pushed some of it into her, restoring her for her loyalty. And for the task ahead.

“Asgard preserves,” he said softly into the silence that had permeated the air.

Sif looked up at him, her eyes hard and dangerous. “Do not deceive me now, snake. I will tear your lying tongue from your skull.”

“In Frigga’s name do I swear this to be true,” Loki told her firmly and her eyes widened slightly at the conviction in his tone. “Those that remain are safe on Midgard.”

“No,” Sif denied, shaking her head. “The titan will _go_ to Midgard, he will _find_ them there!”

“And that,” he began in agreement, “is why I have another task for you.” Placing his hand on her head more gently this time, Loki showed Sif exactly what he needed of her and she paled, her eyes going wide.

Though she’d not let herself shed tears over the loss of Asgard, her eyes welled over now, spilling onto her cheeks. “You…you _cannot_ ask this of me,” Sif begged him, shaking her head in denial. “ _Please_ , Loki…I...I _cannot_.”

“Ah, Sif,” Loki said, stroking her hair gently with something almost like regret. “I’m afraid I wasn’t asking.”

_Pain_.

When would it stop? Why was this even happening?

 _Loki_.

He shouldn’t have gotten involved with Loki, should have stayed on Earth-

 _Earth_.

If Strange could return to Earth, return to his _body_ and the Sanctum, then surely…

 _Sanctum_.

Was the Sanctum unguarded? Had Kamar-Taj heard of-

 _Kamar-Taj_.

There had to be something in the library that Strange could use to fight, some spell or ritual hidden away in some long forgotten tome. Or even… No…no! Keep it together, Stephen!

 _Kamar-Taj_.

 _(Don’t Fear) The Reaper_ , Blue Öyster Cult. Released 1976 on seven-inch vinyl side-A as an edited single, cutting out the interlude from the _Agents of Fortune_ album release. Side-B was _Tattoo Vampire_ …

 _Kamar-Taj_.

 _Don’t Bring Me Down_ , Electric Light Orchestra. Released 1979 on seven-inch vinyl side-A, ninth track on the album _Discovery._ Side-B _Dreaming of-_

**_Kamar-Taj_.**

_Time in a Bottle_ , Jim Croce. No… _Time After Time,_ Cyndi- NO. _Time,_ Pink Floyd. God _damn_ it, Strange! Time…time…timetimetimetime-

 _Time Stone_.

No.

**_Time Stone_.**

NO.

**_TIME STONE_.**

Strange would return to Earth and Kamar-Taj and use the Eye of Agamotto to _obliterate_ the alien and this ship and Thanos himself. He would crumble them into _dust_. He would trap them in a time loop where they could relive their death over and over into the very end of eternity, Hippocratic Oath be _damned_.

“ _Stonekeeper,_ ” his torturer hissed in satisfaction and the pain receded abruptly, leaving Strange barely cognizant. The alien looked triumphant, a thread of excitement vibrating through him as he folded his hands together. “Thank you, that was most enlightening... Come along.”

Nearly delirious now that the agony that filled every corner of his mind had ceased, Strange barely took notice of the disconcerting tug within him, pulling his soul along after the alien like some kind of macabre balloon. No one else took any note of him on this dimension, though he himself hardly registered the ship around him as he was pulled through it. Strange felt as though he were slowly piecing himself back together…and horror flooded trough him as he realized suddenly what he’d done.

Damn. _Damn_. Strange should have made Wong wipe his mind of all knowledge of the stone, as he’d watched him do to others who caught wind of its presence across all dimensions. Instead he had been so damned _arrogant_ , secretly pleased with himself for being able to call its power to bear, to be _master_ of an Infinity Stone. And now his pride would prove his doom…some things never damn well changed.

His alien escort brought him into a wide circular chamber surrounding a massive throne that currently supported an equally massive being Strange had to assume was Thanos. Though his torturer had been all but _exuding_ smugness up to now, that abruptly gave way to irritation as they approached, because _Loki_ was also there, holding the arm of a vaguely familiar dark-haired woman. Both Thanos and Loki turned to look at the alien, though neither spared a glance to Strange.

“Lord Thanos,” the creature greeted, inclining his head respectfully despite the resentment in his tone. “I see you are already aware that Loki is not in his cell.”

“I grow weary of your petty jealousy, Maw,” Thanos warned him, his voice low and even.

Immediately the Maw fell into a much deeper bow, putting a hand to his chest. “Forgive me, my lord. I was merely…surprised.”

“Not an unusual state for you, I imagine,” Loki mocked him, smirking. “Now then, as I was just explaining... This woman-“

“Who has _also_ been removed from her cell…” the Maw muttered under his breath.

“-served under me in my rule on Asgard-”

“I served _Odin_ ,” she snarled, pulling her arm free of him.

“-during which time she delivered the Aether, known also as the Reality Stone, into safekeeping at my behest,” Loki finished, unaffected by the interruptions.

“Delivered to whom?” Thanos asked.

“Taneleer Tivan,” Loki answered, drawing a surprised exclamation from the Maw.

“The _Collector?_ ” he scoffed, mystified. “Why would you trust such a man with an _Infinity Stone?_ ”

“Because I knew he would die before ever giving up something so precious,” Loki answered, keeping his eyes on Thanos.

Tapping the arm of his throne, Thanos regarded Loki a moment, then leaned forward. “What is it you are proposing, Loki?”

“If Tivan knows that you’re coming, he’ll run, prolonging this endeavor unnecessarily,” Loki reasoned, then gestured to the woman at his side. “Set your ship a distance from Knowhere and send Lady Sif to reclaim the stone instead, as it belongs to Asgard by rights. Tivan is a businessman…and he would lose business if word got out that he refused to return property that had been entrusted to him.”

“And if he _does_ refuse?”

“I’m certain the balance of the universe will not be too greatly upset by the loss of the Collector,” Loki replied with a smirk.

Thanos got to his feet, descending from the dais, though he still towered over them all without it. He regarded Sif a time, then nodded toward her. “And why would you do this?”

She didn’t answer him, her jaw tight and raised in defiance, but Loki answered in her stead, saying simply, “Because she is in love with my brother.”

“Is this true?” Thanos asked her and though again she did not answer, her silence spoke volumes. Chuckling to himself, Thanos shook his head. “Such a valuable piece I’ve acquired…had I known he would inspire such compliance, I would have taken the errant prince long ago. Very well, Loki. We shall see if your woman can do as you’ve claimed.”

“My lord, please,” the Maw protested, lifting a hand as though to forestall him. “Surely _one_ _man_ cannot be so desired as to keep the woman from running as soon as she’s out of our reach.”

Thanos’ expression turned considering at that. “She’ll not be fully out of our reach…the Red Skull will accompany her, to redeem his earlier failing.”

“Lord Thanos, perhaps I-“ Loki began, but was cut off with a firm look from the titan.

“You will remain on board,” he said, then paused thoughtfully. “Your brother still has an eye left, does he not?”

Loki looked wary, but inclined his head in agreement. “Last that I checked.”

“If your woman fails, it is forfeit. If she runs, I’ll take him apart piece by piece until she returns. Do we have a deal?”

Some of the smugness returned to the Maw as Loki paled considerably, a look of horror to match lighting over Sif’s face beside him. Licking his lips lightly, Loki gave a slow nod. “Yes…we have a deal.”

Nodding in satisfaction, Thanos looked back to the Maw. “What progress have you made?”

For a moment, Strange thought that the titan was referring to _him_ and steeled himself to hear the Maw reveal what he’d learned of the Time Stone, but instead he said, “The Space Stone has been…resistant. It is possible that it is still recovering from its recent use, but there is almost a… _petulance_ to it. It will take significant power to open the portal we require to move your forces, but the stone has rejected the sources I have fed it thus far. Proxima and Corvus continue to oversee the tests.”

Strange tried to catch Loki’s eyes, but the trickster remained focused on Thanos and the Maw, steadfastly refusing to so much as glance his way. Though he felt fully in control of his mind again, Strange’s incorporeal form still refused to heed his command, held fast in the Maw’s power.

Lifting his hand, Thanos examined his gauntlet, violet light flaring to life from the stone set upon it. “Perhaps it will respond to _this_.”

“It…may,” the Maw hedged, folding his hands at his back. “But we would need a large mass, such as a moon or small planet to build enough destructive energy to open a sizeable portal. It would not be sustainable, but it may be enough to send through the Ring. Such an act would take its toll upon your body, however…you would be weakened for a time.”

“A risk I may be forced to take, should you prove to be unsuccessful in your endeavors,” Thanos stated plainly and the Maw stiffened even as Loki grinned.

Strange watched as the Maw’s hands fisted at his back, but he inclined his head respectfully. “I will return to my work now. I will let you know when I have news, my lord.”

“See that you do. We’ll soon reach the jump point to Knowhere and I want us ready to move as soon as I have the Reality Stone at hand. I have delayed taking full possession of the Space Stone long enough.”

The Maw bowed and then turned on his heel to leave the room, tugging Strange’s soul unseen behind him. For the briefest of moments Loki _finally_ met his eyes, mouth tight with displeasure, but then he’d been pulled from the room and was gone. Strange was getting real tired of his tether and began subtly flexing his will against the hold.

Being held like this reminded him uncomfortably of the months he’d spent in the hospital, held helpless and immobile while his body healed. Each time he’d woken up from another fruitless surgery, Strange had faced that paralysis, that inability to manipulate his body as he’d done so carelessly before the accident. Even when there were no more surgeries to be had, no more doctors willing to open him up and piece him back together, Strange had felt his mind to be trapped within his crippled form, unable to see all that remained in the face of all he’d lost. Finding magic had changed all that, had saved him from the crushing weight of feeling _helpless_ , but now…this was so much worse.

“You don’t seem happy,” he commented dryly, needing something to distract his mind from the panic that threatened to rise. “Upset that Loki overshadowed your big moment?”

The Maw shot Strange an annoyed look and pain flared briefly within him, but that trick was becoming old hat at this point. “Such insolence when it would take so very little effort to kill you, Stonekeeper.”

“But you haven’t,” Strange pointed out, forcing out the words past the ripples of energy burning through him. “And my guess is that if you haven’t done it yet, you’re not going to.”

“Clever boy,” the Maw condescended, pulling him into some kind of lab, awash in an unearthly blue glow.

The light came from the swirling cube of energy that was the Tesseract, sat within some kind of hermetic chamber and watched over closely by a pair of aliens. They glanced up at the Maw when he entered and gave him a brief nod each before returning to their work.

“I have much bigger plans for you, Stonekeeper,” the Maw murmured to him with a smile as he drew him over to a corner of the lab and pinned him there. “Do try not to disappoint me.”

Strange opened his mouth to answer with a retort, but it died away into a hoarse cry as the blades of ether reappeared and pushed into his mind once more.

 _Pain. Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time Stone_.

 _Betrayal_.

Sunlight shone down from a clear blue sky, warming the earth to tease out the aroma of sweet grass as a breeze played over the fields, rolling the blades in gentle, sweeping waves. The sound of rustling grass was broken only by the babbling of a brook as it flowed over rock and pebble, winding its way toward a greater, wilder river in the distance. There was no bird call, no hum of insects or chatter of rodents and as Thor ran from one end of the valley to the other, he knew with a certainty that Valhalla was not _paradise_ , but _purgatory_.

How long had he been trapped here? How long had he wandered the wilds of this place where the sun never fully set? A hundred years? A _thousand?_ Thor felt that he’d covered every inch of this realm, climbed over the high mountains, forded the river, traversed the forests, yet every path he took led back to the valley and the tree and the high hall that was closed to him.

The only signs of life in all of Valhalla came from within the hall, murmurs and laughter and the occasional song, but no matter how long Thor pounded upon the door, it never opened to him. Nor would it budge against the might of his strength, though the storm would not answer his call here to lend its power. Thor had even tried to scale the walls, to get in at the breaks between the golden shields that thatched its roof, but he was thwarted at every turn. Sometimes the hall grew in height, so that no matter how high he climbed, Thor could never reach its mantle. Other times he did make it to the roof, but the shields slid together to block him out whenever he approached an opening.

There were brief moments where the sun started to set and Thor _did_ somehow manage freedom from this place, but those times were almost worse. Thor would awaken to agony rolling through his skull, cold and alone and trapped within a prison that vibrated with a strange energy. The throbbing in his head was so severe that it left him nearly blind and deaf, yet keenly aware of the yawning void all around him. When he would at last return to the sun-warmed fields of Valhalla, Thor would wonder if it was because he’d succumbed to death or dreaming. Testing the doors of the hall became a comfort in those moments, because he had to believe that while they remained closed, Thor was still tied to the living world.

He came to stop beneath the oak tree, caught between life and death in a way he very much empathized with at this current point in time, and sat down heavily at its base. The sun had been creeping steadily toward the horizon for the past few hours and Thor knew that soon he’d wake to the misery of the living world. Perhaps it would be for the last time…and maybe that would be better.

Thunder echoed throughout the valley in a deafening crash and Thor looked up in surprise, because he hadn’t _felt_ it. No crackle of energy, no prickle of ozone, _nothing_. So unnerved was he by this that he didn’t register the woman standing before him until she shifted, looking around in confusion. Their eyes met and the shock of recognition had him lurching to his feet in surprise.

“N…Natasha?”

Thor saw the Black Widow begin to shape his name with her mouth, but the world tilted on its axis as he was thrown from it and back into the waking world. It felt nothing like the other times he had roused, where he moved between the two states of being in an instant. This felt like an _expulsion_ , like he had been rejected from the paradise promised to his kin.

The void and the sickening pain of his wounded flesh and bone overtook him and Thor did not have the sense or reason to think upon what had just happened. He drifted endlessly in that state, the pain lessening only when he lost himself to the void, only to be freshly renewed when he awoke again. Time was a concept he could not seem to take hold of, but eventually Thor found himself anchored by a gentle hand on his face.

“I have you,” a voice murmured to him and Thor could make out the faintest impression of someone there in his cell. Someone he knew…someone he _loved_.

“-ki…”

“Shh…” Clever fingers pressed lightly against his mouth, stilling his words. “Just a little longer.” Warmth seemed to spread out into Thor from the contact and the pain ebbed slowly from him. “Lucky you’ve always had such a thick skull.”

“Loki…” Thor said again as he started to gain greater awareness of his body, reaching for him.

His vision cleared enough that he saw the gleam of pale green eyes and a wan, tired smile and though there was an air of sadness about him, Thor couldn’t think of a time where Loki had ever looked a more beautiful sight. He allowed Thor’s touch only briefly, closing his eyes a moment when his hand found the familiar curve of neck and jaw he so favored. Then he was pressing his fingertips to Thor’s brow and murmuring, “Sleep,” as the world faded away to darkness.

Thor fell not into the void or back to the fields of Valhalla, but settled finally into dreaming for the first time since Thanos had overtaken them. He dreamt of Mjolnir, both whole and broken, heeding his call and rejecting him in turn. He dreamt next of Hela, bedraggled and bloody and thirsting for vengeance, then saw her restored in gleaming armor upon a red planet, a shining blade of silver catching the light unnaturally as she raised it high overhead. The vision unsettled him, for there was a power about the weapon that spoke of the great forge of Nidavellir, but his discomfit faded away as the vision passed and Thor fell into memory instead.

The handful of days spent with Loki upon a primitive, alien world were some of the best in Thor’s extensive memory. Long, sun-drenched days of hunting great beasts, preparing the meat for transport aboard _Gnasher_ to ensure the continued survival of his people _._ Equally long nights laid out under the stars finding pleasure in the other, unburdened by responsibility for just a little while. After returning to camp the very first night, the Valkyrie had taken one look at them and then promptly banished them to the far edge of their encampment, though she hardly had any ground to stand on herself.

On the second night of their planetary excursion, the crew of _Grinder_ had hailed them in a panic when Hulk had made an emergence following the sudden attack of one of the planet’s saurian inhabitants. Incited by the battle, he had disappeared into the wild after dispatching of the beast, so the Valkyrie had taken _Gnasher_ and gone after him...which was fortunate because Loki utterly _refused_ to do so. She returned with the dawn and a very satisfied expression, accompanied by a flustered, but surprisingly relaxed Bruce Banner. He had remained with their party after that and the Valkyrie had sequestered them to the opposite edge of the encampment.

About mid-way through their time on X-J95 had come a night when Thor had lain out under the dark sky, propped up against a fallen log while Loki made use of his lap to pillow his head, eyes shut though he wasn’t sleeping. Thor had been spending as much time in the open air as possible, making little use of their tent. Loki had humored him in this respect and Thor suspected he enjoyed the feel of fresh air upon his skin just as much as he. They still had a few days more before they had to return to the ship and all the duties and expectations that entailed, but for now things were unhurried between them.

As much as Thor enjoyed the passion of their usual coupling, of times when Loki would strip away his control and the weight of his responsibilities until his mind and body yielded gladly to his ministrations, or when Loki would take every pleasure Thor had to offer until they were both spent and shaking, but in his heart he savored the moments like these best of all. They were few and far between, but every now and again Loki would relax his defenses and things would be languid between them, an intimacy brought to completion only as an afterthought.

These were the only times that Loki allowed his touch without expectation of anything to follow and Thor often used it to weave love knots into his hair, as he did now. Loki would let them out before they ever saw the light of day, as he always did, but he never protested their creation. When Thor was partway through the braid, Loki spoke up suddenly, his voice soft over the crackle of the flames he’d conjured earlier.

“I saw you reach for it again today.”

Thor’s fingers stilled briefly before they continued as he replied with false casualness. “Reach for what?”

Opening his eyes, Loki gave him a look and Thor maintained as blithe an expression as he could manage. “How fortunate for you that you’re not half as imbecilic as you look.”

“Hey,” Thor complained, poking a finger at the high ridge of Loki’s cheek. “That’s no way to speak to your king.”

Scoffing, Loki batted away his hand and sat upright, turning to face him. “The _hammer_ , Thor. I saw you reach for the hammer.”

Sighing, Thor averted his gaze, both annoyed and embarrassed by the earlier gaff. There had been a moment in the day’s hunt where Thor had completely forgotten all that had happened, all that he’d _lost_ , and it had been only too easy to reach out and call Mjolnir to hand.

“I had hoped that no one noticed,” Thor grumbled, frowning.

“Clearly,” Loki said in amusement. “If it bothers you so much, why not divert our course? We could just as easily make for Nidavellir as Midgard.”

Thor folded his arms, slumping against the log at his back. “Heimdall and the Valkyrie suggested the same.”

“But of course, you’ll only accept counsel when it suits you,” Loki said dryly, rolling his eyes.

Shaking his head, Thor lifted his hand to cup Loki’s neck, brushing his thumb over his jaw. “Don’t make sport of my words, Loki,” he chided softly. “Putting my selfish needs before Asgard has only ever led to its ruin. Had I not been so consumed by my own glory, I would never have attacked Jötunheim, never been cast out and returned only to destroy the Bifröst and lose you. Had I not left Asgard in my grief to seek solace on Earth following your death on Svarthalheim, you would not have gone unchecked in your masquerade and we might have staved off Ragnarok for centuries to come.”

For a moment Loki’s expression was startled into vulnerability, as sometimes happened when faced with Thor’s raw honesty. It was often a tipping point that could just as easily descend into anger as it did to acceptance and Thor supposed that was a peculiarity due a god of falsehoods. Loki’s brow began to furrow and Thor braced himself for his erstwhile brother’s wrath, but he only sighed and shook his head.

“Of course you would see it that way, the thoughtless martyr that you are.” Leaning in, he kissed Thor chastely and then drew back to settle himself at his side, staring into the fire. “Don’t be so fool as to dismiss the idea entirely, brother… You may find yourself in need of a weapon worthy of Asgard’s king before too long.”

Setting his arm around him, Thor mulled over the idea and tried not to think overlong about how his hands still sought the weight of Mjolnir in his grip. However he longed to hear her song vibrate through him again, Thor privately felt that in that moment, he had all that he needed in his grasp.

Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time Stone.

“Wizard?”

Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time Stone.

“Wizard, if you do not answer I will leave you here.”

Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time St- Loki.

“Loki?” Strange asked blearily, focusing with no small effort.

Loki was watching him warily from the astral plane, limned with an odd amber glow that Strange wasn’t certain existed only in his mind, weary as he was. The trickster nodded toward Strange, relaxing slightly as he said, “He didn’t break you entirely, I see.”

“No thanks to you, asshole,” Strange muttered and tested his astral form, sighing with relief when he found that he could move.

“I had other matters to attend to,” Loki said indifferently.

“Matters like giving Thanos the _Reality Stone_?” he asked angrily, then gestured toward the bright blue radiance of the Tesseract. “Haven’t you already given him enough?”

Loki looked over at the stone rather than answer and Strange thought he saw it glow a bit brighter at his attention, though the magician couldn’t be certain. Watching him, Strange found he was too exhausted to hold onto his anger toward the trickster, though he really, _really_ wanted to. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand, not after hearing Thanos’ threats in that throne room earlier, but Strange rather felt the _safety of the known universe_ was a bit more important than the life of any one person.

Sighing in irritation, he rubbed at his forehead on instinct, though he had neither fingers nor skull at present. “Look, just help me back to Earth and I’ll portal back for Thor like I promised.”

Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time Stone.

Turning back to him sharply, Loki’s eyes narrowed as he watched Strange touch his brow, then he shook his head. “I’ll send you back to Earth, but on the condition that you do _not_ return, wizard.”

Taken aback, Strange frowned at him in confusion. “I’m confused. Now you _don’t_ want me to rescue Thor?”

“If I thought you could manage it effectively, then I would. But seeing as I suspect you would be _immediately_ recaptured, I think it best you focus on preparing your planet for what’s to come,” Loki said cuttingly. “You heard Thanos speak before…he intends to use the Tesseract to move from Knowhere and there’s only one place he could go where he _knows_ there to be another stone.”

“Earth,” Strange agreed, resigned. As soon as the Maw revealed to the titan that there was a _second_ stone on Earth, there would be no reason for Thanos to go anywhere else. “What will you do?”

A slow, wicked smile stole across the trickster’s face as he approached Strange, lifting a hand toward his brow. “I am Loki, God of Mischief and Lies. I will do as my nature demands,” he promised and pressed his fingers to Strange’s brow. “Deceive.”

Loki’s eyes glowed with amber radiance and then Strange was falling backward, spiraling through the cosmos at such speed that it blurred past him in a stream of light and color. His body jerked as he came back to it, as though he’d had a sleep start and Strange gasped, flinching at the synthetic light piercing into his eyes. The physical realm assaulted his senses, overwhelming him with tangible sensation until his cloak settled over his head with a rustle of fabric. Strange huffed out a chuckle to think that an ancient, magical artifact was currently acting as a grown man’s security blanket, but he had to admit that it helped.

“Hi,” he croaked out hoarsely, feeling parched. “I’m back.” Strange fisted his hands in the heavy fall of fabric and felt the cloak tighten around him in return as he took a moment to simply _breathe._ To _process_.

Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time Stone.

“Okay,” he said finally, releasing the cloak and pushing himself upright. “Let’s get started.”


	2. Acquisition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to your support in this massive undertaking! Trying to build out this world and tell the story I've got spinning around my head is daunting, so your comments really help keep me going.
> 
> Credit to [ravenfyre](https://archiveofourown.org/ravenfyre/) for the beta and for letting me bounce things around. Visit me on [Tumblr](http://godofhammers-ao3.tumblr.com/)!

“So,” Tony began as he trailed along the crowded London thoroughfare after one Stephen Strange, who seemed utterly indifferent to the fact that he looked like he’d just wandered out of a cosplay convention. “Explain to me again how you’re going to get us to New York from here?”

Strange spared him an irritated glance, then continued on his path as though Tony hadn’t spoken. “If I hadn’t lost my Sling Ring trying to help _your_ friend, I could have sent you there already.”

“Wait…are you blaming _me_ for _Thor?_ ” Tony asked, giving Bruce an incredulous look as though expecting him to share in his affront. Bruce was, sadly, completely unhelpful, for he still hadn’t lost that same shell-shocked expression he’d been wearing since making it back to Earth. “We aren’t exactly _bosom buddies,_ you know. I for one would like to formally downgrade my association with _any_ Asgardian to co-workers or acquaintances.”

“He did let you try to lift his hammer…” Bruce commented vaguely, keeping his arms wrapped tight about himself as he watched the throngs of Londoners move through the dark, lamp lit streets.

“At this point, who _hasn’t_ had their hands on Thor’s hammer?” Tony said drolly. “Or Natasha’s hammer now, I guess.”

“There it is,” Strange interrupted as they turned a corner and he gestured toward a large, multi-level manor with an odd, circular window displayed prominently on the uppermost floor. “The London Sanctum.”

Sliding on his specs, Tony looked over the readouts of the building as his girl FRIDAY gave it a quick scan, but the data was mostly contradictory and threatened to give him a migraine trying to make sense of it. “Where you have a magic doorway to New York.”

“Where I have a magic doorway to _Nepal_ ,” the magician snapped and leveled a hard look on Tony with his pale eyes. “Which has an _equally_ magic doorway to New York. Do you have any _other_ inane comments you need to get out of your system?”

Tony glowered at Strange in return and grudgingly had to admit that his cape didn’t look half-bad when it was flaring out in response to his obvious irritation. Coupled with the glare, it was maybe even a little impressive. “Yeah,” he replied sarcastically. “Is the Sorting Ceremony taking place before or after the Quidditch match?” Strange stared at him flatly for a long moment and then turned on his heel and walked away. Giving Bruce a knowing look, he nodded after the retreating man. “Slytherin.”

Rolling his eyes, Bruce sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as they trailed after the magician. “Really? We built _murder_ _bots_.”

“Are you kidding me?” Tony asked askance. “Building a robot army because you want to keep your friends from having to fight, only to have them _accidentally_ end up evil is just _classic_ Hufflepuff.”

“Tony, they called you the Merchant of Death,” Bruce said pointedly.

“Hufflepuffs also make excellent salespeople,” Tony countered and grinned as Bruce shook his head in defeat. God, how he’d missed having his best scientist buddy around.

The London Sanctum seemed almost to vibrate with an otherworldly energy as they entered through the wrought iron gate surrounding the property, but Tony couldn’t say for certain whether he imagined it. Though the Avengers Initiative had been tracking the peculiar rumors surrounding Doctor Strange for some time, the very idea of…of _magic_ was still extremely difficult for him to process. It had been hard enough trying to make sense of Thor and Loki over the last decade, because Tony was an _engineer_ and understanding how things worked was sort of his shtick. Beings who created illusions with their mind or controlled the weather on a whim and an inanimate object that came when called and proved impossible to lift unless you were a god, a robot or _Russian_ were not things he understood. Though Tony, for the sake of his sanity, had grudgingly made the effort to accept anything that came from off world as science as of yet to be conceptualized on Earth, Stephen Strange was very much _human_.

That threatened to unseat everything Tony thought he knew… _again_. He was getting really tired of that.

Thus far, Tony had yet to see Strange do anything more alarming than some light hovering, which was something he already dealt with on a fairly consistent basis thanks to Vision. Floating he could handle, no problem. But as they mounted the steps to the front door of the Sanctum, Strange suddenly _vanished_ without a word. He and Bruce immediately came to a halt, staring at the space where the cloaked man had just been standing.

“FRIDAY?” Tony asked uneasily.

 _“I…I don’t know, boss,”_ she replied, managing to sound rather unnerved. _“He’s just…gone.”_

Then there was a sharp, sickly tug somewhere inside his belly and the world went sideways so that they were suddenly standing in a parlor across from Strange and a balding man dressed in similarly ridiculous vestments.

“Oh…not okay,” Bruce complained shakily and bent over to brace his hands on his knees. He looked fairly green, but fortunately it was more in the ‘about to vomit on this 300 year old Persian carpet’ sense.

Tony, on the other hand, was _livid_ , because being angry looked better on him than a mental breakdown. Whipping around, he pointed at the door, and snarled, “Seriously? The door is _right fucking there_.”

Strange had the audacity to _wink_ at him while the man beside him at least looked chagrined and bowed slightly. “Apologies, Mister Stark. We try not to break the physical wards if we can avoid it. One cannot be too careful these days,” the man said congenially. “Welcome to the London Sanctum. I am Doctor Anthony Ludgate Druid, master of this sanctum.”

The sudden hilarity of that introduction caught up to Tony and a slow smile broke out over his face as the anger faded, growing even wider when Strange started to scowl in expectation. “Your name…is _Doctor Druid?_ ”

Druid looked taken aback and blinked a few times, looking over at Strange in confusion before nodding slowly. “Ah…yes. Yes, that’s right.”

“Is having a doctorate like, a _requirement_ for entrance into your secret wizarding club?” Tony wondered archly. “Are there seven of you, each with a defining character trait? Do you protect a princess with a severe apple allergy?”

Looking puzzled, Druid opened his mouth to reply, but Strange forestalled him with a murmured, “Please don’t encourage him.”

Tony gave Druid a pitying look and nodded at Strange. “Is he the grumpy one?” he asked in a stage whisper and grinned at the heavy, annoyed sigh the magician rewarded him with.

Trying to quell a small smile, Druid cleared his throat lightly. “I’m certain you’ve all had a trying day. Perhaps rest and refreshments are in order.”

Steadying himself, Bruce looked a little hopeful at the mention of rest, or possibly food, but Strange shook his head. “I need to get back to New York. The Sanctum-“

“Is currently being looked after by Master Wong,” Druid said gently. “You hardly look fit to stand, much less protect the Sanctum Sanctorum. And your friends aren’t in a much better state.”

“We aren’t friends,” both Tony and Strange spoke in unison, though Tony promptly followed it up with a rapid-fire, “Jinx!” He looked over at Bruce and smirked. “He owes me a Coke.”

“Stay the night,” Druid insisted. “Recover your strength… The world won’t end before morning.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Strange muttered, but his exhaustion was clear on his face. He looked to Tony as though hoping he might protest their delay.

Frankly, the last thing Tony wanted to do was stay the night in some creepy magical manor, but Bruce had that tightness around his eyes that the engineer remembered from before his friend’s off world adventure. The scientist was clearly overwhelmed by the events of the last twenty-four hours and only just keeping it together. A big green incident was not something they particularly needed right now.

“It would give Vision time to catch up with us if he wants to,” Tony said grudgingly and shrugged, folding his arms. “Your call, Doctor Strangelove.”

Strange rolled his eyes upward, then gave Tony a withering glance. “How long have you been sitting on that one?” he wondered caustically.

“All day,” Tony assured him with a smirk and gave the man a wink of his own for good measure. He spared Bruce a teasing grin and raised his brows. “Hufflepuffs are patient.”

Groaning piteously, Bruce covered his face with his hands as Strange let out another heavy sigh and said, “A few hours rest and we’ll go.” He turned on the spot and vanished without another word, leaving them with Doctor Druid.

“Wonderful,” the man said pleasantly and nodded his head. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”

“We can-“ Tony started quickly, wanting to forestall any further teleportation crap, but the room lurched unpleasantly and then they were in a small sitting room. “-walk,” he finished lamely as Bruce made a gagging sound and stumbled over to the settee, seating himself heavily upon it.

“What the hell, Tony,” he said dazedly, bracing his elbows on his knees and fisting his hands into his short curls. “I’m gone for a couple years and the whole world goes wackadoodle? What the _hell._ ”

“Language,” Tony replied reflexively, because honestly… _wackadoodle_.

Bruce gave him a searching look, brow furrowed. “What _happened_ , Tony?” he asked sternly, brow furrowed deeply.

Grimacing, Tony folded his arms. “It’s-“

“I _dare_ you to tell me it’s complicated,” he growled out, voice deepening with a hint of Hulk.

“Okay,” Tony conceded, holding up his hands. “So maybe it’s not as complicated as ending up on another planet.”

Rubbing a hand over his forehead, Bruce sighed and calmed once more. “Nat mentioned something about the UN wanting oversight, and I saw some of the fallout from that already, but you said before that you had a Beatles analogy going. So…who’s Yoko in this scenario?”

Hurt and anger flared in Tony’s chest, tight and hot and ugly as the memory of his mother having the life slowly crushed from her on a gritty security feed. He didn’t want to talk about this, not really, but when did Tony ever get what he wanted? “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” he forced out past his teeth and the name burned in his throat like poison.

Brow furrowed in confusion, it took Bruce a moment to place the name before he squinted at Tony. “As in…the Howling Commando?” he asked and frowned when he received a tight nod of confirmation. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

It took some time to work through everything that had happened over the past few years, especially when Bruce kept interrupting with questions like, “Isn’t Wakanda a third world country?” and “Wait, who’s Spider-Man?” and “There’s a Spider-Man _and_ an Ant Man?” When he’d finally finished laying it all out, Bruce looked as exhausted as Tony felt, but the frame of reference for everything that had happened while he was away calmed him significantly.

“Jesus, Tony, that’s…” Bruce drifted off, shaking his head.

“Complicated,” Tony finished bitterly.

“Yeah, it really is. So you and Steve haven’t talked since then?”

“Not as such. He sent me a fucking handwritten note like a hundred year old man and I’ve forwarded him a few bits of Intel. Things that I couldn’t take action on under the Accords.”

“I’m sorry, Tony…I really am.”

“Yeah,” Tony acknowledged, then pasted on a grin. “But enough about _my_ failed relationships. I’m much more interested to know what’s going on with _yours_.”

Blushing somewhat at the sudden change in subject, Bruce ducked his head and rubbed at his neck. “I wish I knew…” he admitted uneasily.

“Sounds kinky,” Tony teased. “Who doesn’t like a little ambiguity in the bedroom?”

Bruce spared him a brief look, then leaned back in the settee and sighed. “Val, she…she’s not _human_. I forget that sometimes because she _looks_ human, but she doesn’t think or act in ways that I expect. She sees what she wants and she goes for it, like there’s nothing else to consider. I guess Thor is like that, too, now that I think about it,” he mused and then shook his head, looking almost awed. “But Nat...hell, when I realized how long I had been gone, I never thought I’d see her look at me like that again.”

“I’d like you to take a moment to appreciate that you may _actually_ be living Every Man’s Dream.”

Rolling his eyes, Bruce scoffed at that. “This feels more like that dream where you’ve shown up late to class without your pants on. I have no idea what’s going on and I’m not sure how to keep from messing whatever it is up.”

“That why you’re running away with me?” Tony asked and raised his eyebrows knowingly at the scientist when Bruce looked doubtful.

“Maybe,” he confessed. “But I also had to separate myself from whatever Asgardian strangeness Nat just got pulled into. I’ve never seen her unsettled like that…I didn’t want to pile my own complications on top of it. The things I saw out there…” Bruce trailed off, shaking his head. “The universe is weirder than I could have imagined and some of it followed me home.”

“With more on the way,” Tony pointed out grimly, then patted his knee consolingly and stood. “Rest up while you can. I’ll make sure you aren’t abducted.”

Sighing, Bruce settled back and closed his eyes. “I don’t know…maybe getting off world isn’t such a bad plan now.”

If Nebula were ever given the luxury of time to fully enact her vengeance, she would start by taking her father’s hands. It was only fair, after all…her hands had been the first thing Thanos had taken from _her,_ the consequence of failing to move them quickly enough to satisfy his bloodthirsty games. Thanks to her synthetic brain, Nebula could remember each and every piece she had lost and the order in which they had been removed. Were she able, Nebula would follow that list exactly, replacing only what was strictly necessary to keep her father alive to the end. At that point, there would be no need to kill him, for he would be worse than dead.

Just like Nebula.

Pulling free of the port she’d been jacked into, Nebula finished parsing the data and got out her comm pad to make a call to the Milano. From what she’d seen in the navigation cortex, _Sanctuary II_ would be in range of the jump point in short order and remaining connected during a jump was both unnecessary and suicidal. All ships generated a significant amount of energy when moving through the jump points, but considering the mass of _this_ ship, Nebula’s intricate neuro pathways would likely melt. Even she couldn’t rebuild from something like that.

The comm pad flashed as the call connected and Gamora’s concerned expression filled her view. “Nebula,” she said urgently, her eyes checking automatically for signs of damage. “Are you alright? We just reached Knowhere.”

“I’m fine,” Nebula replied dismissively, focusing on the image of her sister. “We’ll be making the jump soon.”

Gamora relaxed fractionally and nodded. “Tell me you have a plan.”

“I have a plan,” Nebula told her stoically and from off-screen, she could hear Quill demand, _“Did she just make a **joke**?”_

Her eyes flitting briefly sideways to give her captain a quelling look, Gamora pinned Nebula with a searching gaze. “Am I going to like this plan?”

“I found out where they’re keeping one of the stones,” Nebula explained. “The plan is that I take it, steal a ship and we get the hell out of his quadrant.”

 _“ **That’s** your plan?” _ She heard Rocket scoff. _“A smash and grab? Are you sure Quill didn’t come up with this plan?”_

_“Hey!”_

_“It is true, your plans are similarly simple and brutish,”_ Drax agreed. _“And they often fail.”_

_“Why am **I** the one under attack right now?”_

_“Perhaps you should come up with a better plan,”_ Mantis added helpfully.

 _“This **isn’t**_ _my plan to begin with!”_

_“I am Groot.”_

“ _Enough!_ ” Gamora snarled at all of them, half turning in her seat to bark, “Apologize to Quill, Groot.” The young alien reluctantly did so, though it hardly sounded sincere, and Gamora returned her attention to her sister. “It is an _awful_ plan, Nebula. There are countless ways in which it could go wrong, you need to focus on getting off that ship.”

Nebula’s eyes narrowed somewhat and she gritted her teeth before speaking again to say, “I am _not_ part of your crew, Gamora. I am not a _Guardian_ , Quill is _not_ my captain and I have contacted you only as a _courtesy_. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even know where Thanos was going…or did you prefer it that way? You always were his most favored.”

Her sister’s mouth thinned at that. “That isn’t fair,” she said softly, but there was anger banked in her tone.

“Fairness is our father’s compulsion, not mine,” Nebula countered and her words were meant to wound. She regretted it almost immediately as Gamora’s eyes fell, but Nebula kept her expression firm, unwilling to waver now that she had chosen her course. “I will take the stone and meet you on Knowhere.” Without another word, Nebula disconnected the call and stared at the blank screen of her comm pad.

Whether it were a consequence of her synthetic brain or the endless parade of horrors that had marked her childhood, Nebula didn’t feel things as she was meant to. Pleasure was foreign to her and always would be; her father saw to that by ensuring only her pain receptors remained. She didn’t hope, didn’t dream, didn’t _love…_ yet rage and resentment were old friends to her. Perhaps that was programming; a mad design dreamt up by Thanos to ensure she would never be satisfied, never calm or peaceful. And yet…if Nebula _could_ love someone, it would be Gamora.

Much as her sister felt inexplicably tied to Thanos, even after all this time and all that he had done, Nebula had cared for Gamora from the moment of their first meeting, when she still had hair and bones and a heart that beat. It left her a little unsettled to have left things the way she had right, because she knew she had caused her sister pain, knew that in all probability what might be Nebula’s final words to her had been barbed. She would do nothing to change that fact now, but the unexpected regret of it was enough to briefly give her pause.

Putting away the comm pad, Nebula began her spiderlike crawl out of the infrastructure of _Sanctuary II_ , taking a path no organic creature could manage toward her destination. When she reached the laboratory, she looked in through the ventilation, silently scanning the room. It was empty but for a handful of Chitauri, standing a silent guard around a hermetic chamber containing a swirling cerulean cube that had to be the stone. The guards didn’t concern her, she and Gamora killed Chitauri for _sport_ as children, but Nebula was certain Thanos’ chosen few would not leave the stone unattended for long. She had to time this perfectly if she were to succeed, else Gamora would never let her live it down...assuming she lived at all.

Her internal sensors indicated that the ship had reached the jump point and Nebula felt the shift in the air, the subtle vibrations that meant _Sanctuary II_ was about to traverse hyperspace. As silently as she could, Nebula removed the ventilation cover and waited, readying the timer in her mind. When they made the jump, she would have thirteen seconds to disable the guards, grab the stone and _run_. Faster than light travel was disorienting for most living beings, the effect of which was increased by the mass of whatever vessel they traveled in. This meant that the majority of the ship would be disabled for a scarce number of minutes that would grant Nebula, whose few remaining organic parts would be unaffected by the jump, time to get away.

As soon as she detected the telltale pull of the jump, Nebula exploded from her hiding place with a fierce battle cry, hurling the ventilation cover at the hermetic chamber. It exploded in a cascade of glass and sparking energy, but she paid it little mind as she tore through the Chitauri, who had only just began to register that they weren’t alone. Less than seven seconds. Sloppy, it should have taken less than _three_. Darting forward over bodies and broken glass, Nebula reached in to seize the stone with the cold, metal talons that made up her right hand.

“Freeze all motor functions.”

Nebula’s body went rigid against her will, rage and deep-seated horror flooding her mind even as her joints locked in place, the tips of her fingers mere millimeters away from the pulsing cube before her. No. _No,_ she was so _close!_ Though she knew it was futile, Nebula tried to break free of her programming, willing her fingers to _move_ even as a familiar, _hated_ form approached with unhurried steps.

“ _Proxima_ ,” Nebula forced out past the clench of her teeth, the name filled with venom despite how it was garbled by her inability to move her jaw.

In as much as Thanos was her father, Proxima was her mother…her _maker._ So much of what Nebula had endure befell her at Proxima’s hand, the product of Proxima’s ingenious cruelty, and she’d long ago learned to fear the woman over all her father’s Children. It was hard not to lose herself now to a child’s blind panic, held helpless as she was by Proxima’s programming.

“It would seem I owe my husband an apology,” Proxima commented lightly as she moved into view. “Corvus said that you would return to us before the end. I argued that you weren’t that senseless. How thrilled I am to find that I overestimated you.” Lips twisted in a mocking smile, she reached out to cup Nebula’s cheek in some semblance of affection. “Father will be so very _pleased_ to see that you’ve come home.”

_Gamora…forgive me._

The sudden, sickening jolt of traversing hyperspace jerked Thor out of his dreams and memories, sending him surging to his feet with a warrior’s instinct. Disoriented by both the jump and that he’d not been fully conscious in an interminable amount of time, he fell into a defensive stance as his eye swiftly searched his surroundings. That he was in a cell was immediately clear to him and the tug of faster than light travel meant that he was on a ship…

“Thanos,” Thor ground out harshly, his voice a dry rasp that scraped uncomfortably out of his throat.

With an angry roar, he slammed his fist into the kinetic barrier that walled off the door to his cell, though it served no purpose other than to bruise his fist. Still, the physical release of the rage storming within him helped to calm his mind somewhat. The air around him vibrated in a way that made his skin crawl and he guessed that it was countering his ability to call upon his powers, for he felt no spark of lightning and could not sense the artificial atmosphere of the ship. Taking stock of himself, Thor was unsurprised to find that he was stained in several places by his own blood, though it was dried and tacky now. What _did_ surprise him however was the fact that he did not appear to be injured, his skin unbroken beneath questing fingers. How long had he been here to have so fully healed?

_‘Lucky you’ve always had such a thick skull.’_

“Loki,” Thor murmured as the memory came to him, looking about his cell as though expecting the trickster to reveal himself from the shadows.

He had never known the god of mischief to be prepossessed of talents in the healing arts, yet he could swear that he’d felt Loki mend his wounds. It wasn’t unreasonable to think that his erstwhile brother might have hidden such a talent from him for all these years. Loki was a determined creature when he wished to keep a truth concealed. He’d certainly proven that with his years long ruse on Asgard…and with his actions on the _Foundation_.

_‘Not even once could you do as you were meant to.’_

Guilt weighed heavy upon his heart and Thor paced the confines of his cell, wishing that he had more available to him to hit. How had his people suffered for this rash decision? How would the Nine Realms and the known universe suffer should Loki succeed in finding the stones for the Mad Titan? Fear gripped at him suddenly as he wondered where it was they had jumped to. Were they even now at the jump point nearest to Midgard? Odin had long ago ensured that the technology was not established too closely to any of the Nine Realms and that it was far removed from Asgard herself, but Thor had seen how quickly this ship moved before. If Midgard were the intended destination, Thanos would likely be upon the planet before the Avengers could muster a defense.

The idea that they could even now be bearing down upon the blue world, that Thanos could soon be launching an attack against the Midgardians and the survivors of Asgard with _Loki_ at his side and all because of _him_ was nothing short of torture. With a snarl of impotent rage, Thor lashed out upon the walls of his cell again, the shameful burn of blame fueling him into a physical outburst as he’d not succumbed to in years. He had no idea how long it was he railed against the walls, but he surely left his mark in them as he struck out again and again, until his skin finally started to split at the knuckles under his violent assault.

So lost was he to the maelstrom of savagery that Loki’s voice fell on deaf ears until finally the trickster had to open the cell and tackle him to the floor, twisting limbs at the joints to hold him in place. “ _Desist_ at _once_ ,” he hissed into Thor’s ear, cutting through the haze of fury and leaving him pained and panting on the floor.

It was impossible to relax into the hold with pain singing along his nerves where Loki held the advantage to break his joints should he so choose. It was the sort of hold that Sif used to catch him in when they’d sparred together in happier times, always warning him that he was so concerned with swinging his arms forward that he rarely guarded his back. Still, the anger fell away from him as abruptly as it had come, leaving Thor nearly giddy in the relief that followed.

“I yield,” he murmured roughly and Loki relaxed the hold, drawing away from him. Thor rolled to his back to stare up at him, glad to see that Loki looked to be just as fully recovered from the damage taken on the _Foundation_. “You’re all right?”

“Better than you, clearly. Though neither of us will be good for long if we linger here,” Loki told him pointedly and extended him his hand.

Taking the trickster’s hand when it was offered to pull himself to standing, Thor kept hold of Loki and pulled him forward unthinkingly to catch him in a sudden kiss. It was a foolish thing to do after everything that had happened, but Thor could hardly think of anything else just then, buoyed by such sheer, blinding _relief_ that they were together again. Alive and seemingly whole for the moment. Unsurprisingly, Loki went stock still, his mouth stiff and unyielding against the impulsive desperation of Thor’s affections and then the trickster shoved at him so violently that Thor very nearly fell right back down to the floor again. Though he was well used to Loki’s wrath when crossed, he was taken aback to see that his erstwhile brother wore a _wounded_ expression, as though Thor had just betrayed him utterly.

“I-I’m sorry,” he stammered at once, a pang of regret going through him.

Anger stole across his sharp features, but hurt still lingered in Loki’s eyes as he spat, “Have you taken complete leave of your senses? Have you no care for where we are? What we have yet to do?”

“Loki, I-“

“Be _silent_ ,” Loki all but growled at him and turned away, checking the corridor beyond the cell door. “Pray that you’ve more luck than you do good sense, or we’ll very likely be dead soon. Come. Our window is closing rapidly.” He beckoned Thor to follow and slipped out of the cell, moving quickly and silently through the brig, his eyes wary and watchful.

Chastened, Thor obediently followed after him, feeling remorseful even as his heart continued to race with elation to be rejoined with him. He almost hoped that some hapless guard might cross their path so that he could expend some of his excess energy upon them, but Loki was careful to guide them away from any such trouble. They passed a number of poor souls held captive to Thanos’ tender mercies, most of them staring out with a sort of mindlessness borne of having been subjected to the strange, timeless quality of the ship. Becoming more aware of them, Thor slowed and finally stopped, reaching out to forestall Loki with a hand on his arm.

Loki gave him a sharp look of warning, but Thor held up his hands peaceably, saying softly, “Can’t we do anything for them?”

His eyes flitting about to the other cells, Loki’s mouth tightened. “There is neither the time, nor the resources. We must leave _now_ , while focus is elsewhere.”

Thor knew the sense of it, knew that it was more important to get Loki away from Thanos and to remove himself from the board as damnable _leverage_ , but it galled him all the same. He closed his eye briefly, trusting Loki in this, but then opened it again to look at him seriously. “Are there any other Asgardians being kept here?” There were so few of them now…the thought of sacrificing even one of them seemed intolerable.

Loki’s eyes widened, then narrowed and he looked away, seeming almost at war with himself for a few seconds before he finally cursed and turned on his heel, muttering under his breath the whole way. Smiling slightly in relief, Thor followed, careful to stay quiet lest he break his sorcerer’s tenuous inclination to sacrifice their precious time for this.

He led Thor through the cell block and stopped finally before one of the kinetic barriers, pressing at the panel beside it with a determined scowl. After a few moments, Loki struck it impatiently and the barrier finally gave way, granting entry. Giving Thor a look, he ducked inside to collect the prisoner within, a bedraggled Asgardian woman with long, dark hair that hung into her face, unkempt and dirty as the rest of her. She seemed barely conscious as Loki got his shoulder under her arm and hauled her to her feet, half carrying her from the cell.

Feeling something ease in his chest, Thor took point and kept a watchful eye on their surroundings, understanding without words that he needed to be ready to defend them all. He let his hand brush against Loki’s side briefly and murmured, “Thank you.”

Sighing, Loki shook his head, sounding weary, but resolved. “Don’t thank me until we survive this madness.”

Vision found it unsurprising to be greeted by the barrel of a gun when the door to the Carter Estate opened, which was only partially due to the fact that he’d already used his expanded sensory input to scan through the heavy door of reinforced oak. Carter women were, historically, quite formidable and not to be underestimated, especially when looking after their charge. The gun would not, of course, have any effect on him whatsoever, but he imagined that it made the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who wielded it feel better.

“Good evening, Miss Carter,” Vision greeted her politely, inclining his head.

Sharon Carter’s brow furrowed slightly as she took him in, recognizing his voice, if not his form. “Vision…?” she said cautiously after a moment. “You look…”

“Human,” he supplied helpfully and nodded once. “I thought this to be a less conspicuous guise.” He gestured at himself and was rather irrationally proud to know that he could pass as human in this way, should he so choose. It wasn’t that Vision was in any way ashamed of the meld of technology and manufactured biology that made up his person, but it was a point of pride to know that he was wholly unlike any imagined attempt at artifice, to where it would never be in question whether he could prove his own consciousness. He rather suspected that particular trait had been born of Tony’s influence in his creation.

“Yes. That,” Sharon agreed, her tone clipped and her gun unwavering despite the recognition. “Though I suppose you phased through the outer defenses.”

“I…did, yes. However, I did think it would be more polite to at least knock.”

“How thoughtful,” she drawled sarcastically and relaxed her aim at long last, though he noticed she did not thumb on the safety. “It’s a little late for a social call, Vision. Is there something I can help you with?” Though her tone was civil, there was a hard wariness in her eyes, one of which was badly bruised.

“I know Wanda is here, Miss Carter…I would like to see her,” he said gently.

Sharon’s mouth tightened, as did her grip on the gun and she lowered her voice, the words clipped and hard with anger. “Hasn’t Stark done enough to her already? Just leave her _alone_. She’s no threat to his little dog and pony show with the UN.” She knew that she didn’t have the ability to stop him entering in any way and the helplessness imposed upon her by his very nature removed all trace of warmth from her, leaving only the trained professional behind.

“Please, Miss Carter. I’m not…this isn’t about Mister Stark or the Accords. I…” Vision faltered slightly, letting his eyes drift upward, looking through the walls in the infrared spectrum to the chaotic pulse of energy that he knew had to be Wanda. “I believe that she’s been…calling me.” He returned his gaze to Sharon, who was watching him with a pensive frown. “Please…” he said again. “Believe me when I say that I would do nothing to cause her pain.”

“Trusting you would have been a lot easier before I spent two years of my life watching her piece herself back together, courtesy of your boss,” Sharon said cuttingly, but put the safety on her gun and holstered it, stepping back to grant him entry.

Vision found that the implication of her words caused him near physical discomfort and wondered if this was what it meant to experience heartache. He didn’t bother to protest that he hadn’t known about the dampener Tony had developed for Wanda, because he _ought_ to have known about it, given that it was data he himself had compiled that made it possible.

“I cannot undo what happened, Miss Carter. I can offer only my deepest remorse for how you both have suffered. Though I cannot speak on behalf of anyone else involved, for my part in it…I have no greater regret,” he said to her softly as he stepped inside, looking down at her. When she nodded in acknowledgement, though not forgiveness, he inclined his head and then moved past her, making his way unerringly toward Wanda.

“Watch your head,” Sharon muttered as she closed and locked the door again, not bothering to follow after him. “It’s not a good day.”

Vision didn’t have to wonder long about the warning, for a sconce tore itself suddenly from the wall as he came to the stairs, flying out at him, then through him as he dropped his human guise and phased instinctively. He turned to watch it clatter loudly upon the floor in surprise, but when he looked back at the wall, the fixture was firmly seated once more. The only sign that anything had been amiss at all was a faint flicker of scarlet energy that danced over the surface briefly before vanishing as though it were only a trick of the light. Staring at the sconce in surprise, Vision glanced back behind him to see that the one which had gone through his body was still lying upon the floor, yet even as he watched, it winked out of existence once more.

“I…see,” he said to himself and expanded all his sensory input to regard the house about him.

The vivid pulse of Wanda’s power had been obvious well before he’d even come in sight of the Carter Estate, but Vision had wrongly assumed that had to do with the obvious distress he’d been feeling from her over the past day. Now he could see that this had clearly been going on for some time, long enough that the maelstrom of Wanda’s unique brand of energy had soaked into the house itself, threading through the walls in a spidery web. He hadn’t realized how badly Tony’s dampener had affected Wanda’s tenuous hold over the chaotic magic after the fact, or that the consequences still plagued her. Should an outsider unfamiliar with Wanda come here now, he imagined that the house would seem very, _very_ haunted.

When he had first found out about the collar used on Wanda in the Raft, Vision had been completely and utterly _furious_ for the first time in his admittedly short life, nearly incapacitated by the emotion and unsure how even to express such a thing. To date, that was the only time he had ever fought with Tony, though the argument had been short-lived. Vision had taken a moment to analyze the situation as he so often did in combat, as though to recklessly allow his outburst of emotion to goad him into rash action, only to realize within a matter of seconds that the near-broken man had needed his support, not his censure.

Love was an ill-defined concept that Vision still struggled with in the scant years he could claim to his life, but so did much of the planet, from what he had seen of them. Still, he felt that if he were as capable of love as he believed himself to be, then it was not wholly illogical that he should love both Wanda and Tony. They might seemingly represent opposition in nearly every facet of their being, but to love one was not to pose obstruction in loving the other. Though he could admit that it did occasionally pose a unique set of challenges. Being able to process information at the rate of a machine and having no need for sleep meant that he’d had a great deal of time to dwell on his collected data and his…feelings for the pair.

He knew without ever needing pose the question that Tony would never accept him in that way, both because the man had been directly involved in giving life to him and because Vision was a physical manifestation of nearly everything Tony feared. It was regretful, but Vision had no desire to cause the man pain by proposing the concept of love to him. He doubted whether Tony would ever be fully able to see past the artifice of his construction and if he were honest with himself, Vision could not be wholly certain that his feelings weren’t borne out of recognition of the man’s role in his own creation.

With Wanda, things were simultaneously clearer and a great deal more complicated.

Making his way up the stairs, which occasionally vanished underfoot, and winding his way through hallways that appeared to lengthen or led him in circles quickly grew tiresome even without the occasional inanimate object suddenly flinging itself at him in a _highly_ animated fashion. Vision had to admire Sharon’s resilience if she’d truly spent years navigating this chaos, ‘bad day’ or not. Highly trained she might be, but the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was still an unenhanced human and he found himself reevaluating her resourcefulness. He almost felt guilty when he gave up on navigating Wanda’s maze and simply phased through it, gliding up toward the bright pulse of her energy until he rose through the floorboards of her room and settled lightly upon them.

Wanda was curled up on the floor before her bed, her head bowed over her knees, which she held tightly to her chest. If she’d noticed his arrival, she made no sign of it, though her body shuddered every few seconds as a crackle of red energy danced over her skin. The sight of her made something within him lift and expand, though Vision simultaneously felt pained to see her in obvious distress. Kneeling before her, he reached out cautiously, letting his fingers brush against her coppery hair.

“Wanda…” he whispered gently, and felt monumentally foolish a moment later when she gasped and lashed out at him in surprise, throwing him across the room with an arc of red light. Picking himself up out of the splintered remains of her writing desk, Vision gave her a slightly wan smile. “I apologize…I should have used the door.”

“Vis?” Wanda asked in shock, the red of her eyes fading to green. “You…what are you… Are you…real?”

“That is the general consensus,” he agreed, phasing slightly to rid himself of lingering debris. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

Pushing unsteadily to her feet, Wanda braced herself on one of the four posters of her bed as though to ground herself, looking both hopeful and frightened as she stared at him. Her expression rather reflected his own feelings and Vision suspected that if he had a human’s circulatory system, his heart would be pounding in that moment. As it was, he felt as though he could hardly process his sensory input, elated to see her and fearful that she would reject him out of hand for his betrayal. Then her eyes went soft even as they filled with tears and they fell into one another as though drawn in by an outside force, holding onto the other fiercely.

“I’m sorry,” Vision whispered into her hair. “Wanda, I am so very sorry. I didn’t know…”

“ _Vis_ …” she sobbed into his chest, her fingers fisting into his cloak as though afraid he might slip through them. “You never came. I thought…but you never came back to me.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he said, closing his eyes tightly as he let the rest of his senses take their fill of her, refreshing his memory stores. “After everything, I thought…you might not wish to see me again.”

“What?” she asked in confusion, pushing back from him slightly to look up into his face.

Brushing away her tears gently, Vision cupped her face, then let his fingers ghost over her throat. “The dampener…”

Wanda’s eyes reddened at the reminder, but she shook her head, moving her hands to cover his where they still held her. “No, Vis, I…I know who made that… _thing_ ,” she spat bitterly. “I thought…maybe you were afraid of me.”

“Wanda, I could never fear you,” he murmured, taking her hands in his own.

“I hurt you,” she reminded him and Vision fully remembered it, remembered the helplessness he’d felt in the face of her power.

To his knowledge, Wanda was the only person on the planet, perhaps the only person in the _galaxy_ , who could incapacitate him in that way. He _ought_ to fear her for that, and yet Vision found that the fact actually gave him…comfort. However easily he might assert that he was not Ultron, part of that sentience did live on within him and Vision was not so arrogant to think himself infallible to the potential of someday losing himself to that callous disregard of life.

“I was holding you prisoner,” he countered and shook his head. “In that moment you were hurting your captor, not your…” The words faltered and died away as Vision realized he had no idea how to define what they were to one another.

“Not my…what?” Wanda asked in a hushed tone, her wide eyes searching his.

Vision’s mind worked with more efficiency than any supercomputer built by humanity, yet in the face of his feelings the android suddenly found himself struck dumb. But then, words were not always necessary between them, tied as they were by the stone that had given new life to them both, pulsing gently at his brow. He bent closer to her without a thought, as though pulled in by some strange gravitation and she shivered against him at the brush of his lips on hers.

“ _Uggggh_ ,” a man groaned from across the room. “Get a room already.”

“This _is_ her room, _pako_ ,” a second man commented dryly, though there was a note of disapproval in his tone. The tenor of his voice was not unfamiliar to Vision, though that seemed highly improbable given that he was certain it belonged to a dead man.

Wanda tensed and drew away from Vision to wrap her arms about herself, closing her eyes tightly. He spared her a worried glance before turning to face the two interlopers, the Mind Stone flashing brightly in warning. “Who are you?” he demanded of them, unnerved to see that the second man _did_ in fact bear a likeness to Pietro Maximoff. A _perfect_ likeness. Fearing the worst, he let loose with a beam from his brow and both men blurred away from it long before they came to any danger, reappearing elsewhere.

“Hey, woah, easy on the laser beams!” the first man protested, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead. “Wow, you are _really_ purple. Thought maybe it was just my lenses. Or maybe you’re violet…no, magenta?”

“ _Zavři hubu!_ Do you always have to speak as soon as a thought is in your head?” Pietro’s doppelgänger scolded in disgust, keeping a wary eye on Vision.

“Wait!” Wanda gasped out, catching Vision’s arm before he could turn the stone on them again. “You…you _see_ them?”

Brow furrowed, Vision looked down at her in confusion, glancing back at the two men. “Wanda, what’s going on? Who are they?”

“Uh, she’s our sister, obviously,” the first man said as though Vision were being particularly thick headed.

“She’s _my_ sister, Peter,” the doppelgänger corrected, glaring at the first man as he folded his arms across his chest. “ _You_ are an aberration.”

“Potato, tomato, you fucking _died_ , so who’s the aberration _now?_ ” Peter challenged, and then abruptly the pair of them winked out of reality, much as Vision had seen so many other objects do since entering the estate.

Vision stared at the place where the two of them had been, expanding all of his sensory input across every spectrum and wavelength available to him to ensure that they had truly gone. Finally, he looked back at Wanda, unsettled by what he had just seen. She stared back at Vision helplessly, a desperation in her eyes to know that he had witnessed the pair of them, that her ‘brothers’ had not simply been an imaginary torture she’d inflicted on herself.

“I thought I was going mad,” she confided to him in a raw whisper. “I thought my mind was breaking. Vis…what’s happening to me?”

He shook his head slowly and reached out to take her hands in his own, squeezing them reassuringly. “I cannot say for certain…but I believe that I know someone who can help.”

_“Looks like they’re- Fuck that’s a really big ship!”_ Rocket exclaimed from over the comms and into Gamora’s ear. _“I thought Ronan was compensating for something with the Dark Aster, but this…this is a **serious** indicator of some feelings of inadequacy.”_

“I’m not seeing anything yet,” Quill commented, examining the readouts from the shuttle.

Gamora leaned over his shoulder to peer at them, resting her hand on his back to take comfort in his presence as she did. “We might not be able to get accurate readings from inside Knowhere.”

 _“They’re still pretty far out there,”_ Rocket admitted. _“I’d guess they’re planning on staying back, too. Didn’t figure Thanos for the sneaky type.”_

“He isn’t,” Gamora said, frowning and looking up through the shuttle’s viewport. “But some of his Children are.”

“You are very sneaky,” Drax agreed amicably, as though this would be a comfort to her.

“Dude,” Quill said reproachfully, giving Drax a look even as Gamora’s mouth tightened. “Ixnay the aughter-of-Thanos-day.”

“I am not familiar with that dialect, Quill,” Drax replied, frowning.

Sighing, Quill spared Gamora an apologetic glance, but she refused to let herself become distracted by her feelings toward her adopted father now. Not when she was still unsure of Nebula’s fate. The three of them had elected to take the shuttle from the Milano down into Knowhere’s bustling spaceport while Rocket remained ready for a quick extraction. There had been no discussion about the possibility of bringing Groot along, despite the youth’s angry protests at being treated like a sapling, but they’d also had to leave Mantis behind to ensure they’d have room for Nebula on the return trip. Mantis’ empathic abilities had proven their value in combat more than once, but making good use of them relied on a certain level of planning and coordination and sheer _luck_ that they didn’t have at this moment. There was little chance of them getting through this without a fight, which meant they needed the heavy hitters.

_“Heads up, asshats…looks like you’ve got company coming.”_

“How many?” Gamora asked quickly, checking the readouts again.

 _“Just one,”_ Rocket grunted. _“You want I should get close enough to scan it?”_

“Hell no, keep my baby well away from anything potentially Thanos related,” Quill protested.

“If it isn’t Nebula, then it’s no one we want getting alerted to our presence,” Gamora agreed, though the expectancy would torment her.

 _“Fine by me,”_ Rocket said, sounding relieved to stay well out of it. Gamora could hardly blame him for that, not when he had Groot on board. Though he would never say it in so many words, she knew that the raccoon was terrified of losing the child, as were they all to some extent. Groot’s father had once made the difference in them between becoming a team and a family, and raising his progeny in the wake of his sacrifice had only strengthened that bond over time. If the Guardians could manage to survive bringing Groot through puberty without killing him or each other, Gamora doubted there would be a force in the galaxy strong enough to sever their ties.

It took just over an hour for the ship to reach the spaceport, slipping in among the various other shuttlecraft that bustled in and out of the mining colony. Once they could see where the incoming craft was going to dock, the three of them left the ship to wind their way toward it through the throng. Though Quill was hesitant to leave their shuttle unattended in the lawless settlement, known for smugglers, pirates and mercenaries as much as it was for mining, he wasn’t about to leave Gamora on her own. Drax wanted revenge with a single-minded tenacity that might well leave her uncovered should he see a moment to act on it. They’d very nearly had Mantis put him out back on the Milano because of that very fact, but had ultimately decided that would only create a larger problem in the end.

Quill raised a fist to call them to a halt once they were close enough to easily view the ship, which was still finishing its docking procedures. Slipping past him to a position that made it look far less like they were watching the ship, and ignoring Quill’s grumbled protest as she did so, Gamora gripped the hilt of Godslayer and waited, her heartbeats quick with anticipation. It didn’t take long for her hearts to go heavy with disappointment, because the woman that doors opened onto was not Nebula. Dark-haired and armored, the woman looked about the spaceport impassively before descending from the ship, followed closely by a hooded man.

“Where is Thanos?” Drax grumbled unhappily and Quill shushed him, looking over at Gamora questioningly. She shook her head in answer, not recognizing the woman and unable to clearly see the man.

They were too far away to hear the conversation between them, but it was clear that they were arguing, the woman obviously displeased by the man’s presence and not bothering to hide it. She gestured sharply as she spoke and must have won her argument, for she turned sharply and stalked away without further comment, leaving the man to glare after her. As he moved to go back into the ship, Gamora caught a glimpse of his face and cursed under her breath.

“Gamora?” Quill asked softly, keeping an eye on the woman so that they didn’t lose her in the crowd.

“The Red Skull,” she said unhappily. “A miserable pissant that clings to Thanos like a parasite. He is of Terra.”

“ _What?_ ” he gasped in shock, staring at her aghast. “That is _not_ what Terran’s look like.” He made a gesture to encompass his whole person to prove his point.

 _“Guys, there’s another ship coming in,”_ Rocket broke in. _“It’s even smaller than that other one…looks like maybe it’s an escape pod.”_

“Nebula,” she breathed out in relief without meaning to, feeling something ease in her chest.

“What do you want to do?” Quill asked, gesturing between the ship and the dark-haired woman determinedly making her way through the crowded port, barely visible now.

Gamora hesitated only briefly as she considered whether it would be worth it to deal with the twisted creature on board the ship now, but then motioned that they move to follow the woman instead. “They’re either after a stone or information on one. We don’t know whether or not Nebula managed to get the stone she was after…we can’t risk them getting this one.”

With a rakish grin, Quill nodded and primed his blasters for ready fire. “Then let’s go get ourselves an Infinity Stone.”

“This is a terrible plan, Quill,” Drax told him a short time later as they carefully crept through the upper landing of Taneleer Tivan’s reconstructed museum.

Their captain had proposed that it was unlikely that the Child of Thanos was headed anywhere other than to see the Collector and Gamora had agreed with him, remembering the hunger for the stones the man had displayed previously. Quill’s plan was that they should get to the museum first, break in and wait for the woman to arrive. Knowing that the Collector was ‘a wily old bastard’, Quill surmised that if he did have a stone, he’d have it so well hidden that they’d never be able to find it without him. They would lie in wait until Tivan brought it out for the woman, or until she killed him and found it herself, then swoop in, grab it, shoot or stab everything and run like hell.

The problem with Quill’s plans was that they could rarely form a better one. Gamora had learned long ago that it was best to simply go with whatever it was he’d concocted, wait for everything to go wrong, then do everything in her power to keep them alive.

To their good fortune, one of Tivan’s slaves happened to be carrying the waste out to collection bin just as the three of them were trying to figure out how it was they were going to break in. Darting forward on silent feet, Gamora had managed to catch the door before it could close and waited a breath to ensure that no one inside had noticed. When no cry of alarm came, she’d pried it back open, forcing the hydraulics just enough for the three enough to slip through before allowing it to shut properly. Making their way through the service entrance to the museum proper, Quill had motioned that they should go up to the upper level, giving themselves a better vantage over whatever would transpire and prompting Drax to offer his sudden reluctance toward the plan.

“You’re saying this just now?” Quill whispered furiously at him, gesturing around him. “Drax, we’re already _halfway thru_ the plan.”

Drax shrugged, unconcerned by the absurdity of it as he eyed the various flora and fauna enclosed in their cubes about them. “It didn’t seem as terrible then. Now it does.”

“Now is way, _way_ too late, you ass!”

“Peter,” Gamora murmured softly, putting her hand on his arm to quiet him. “This is his first time here.”

Quill opened his mouth in protest, then thought about it and closed it again as he remembered that the last time they’d been here, Drax had been drunkenly hailing Ronan out of deep space. He had never seen the macabre holding cells, well-lit and displayed as though the life forms within were just objects in space. The museum was unnerving enough when coming in through the main entrance, but accessing the building from the service corridors meant that they moved among the less visually appealing ‘pieces’ of Tivan’s Collection.

“I am not an ass,” Drax grumbled quietly to himself, frowning at a cube that held a small, gray-skinned child, curled tightly in on themselves.

“No, you’re not,” Quill sighed, looking a little regretful. “Look, all of us are getting out of here, okay? No one’s getting locked up in a cage.”

“Shh…” Gamora quieted them, slipping forward silent as a shadow to peer over the balcony to the floor below. “She’s here…”

“-will admit I did not expect to see you again,” Tivan was saying as he led the dark-haired woman into the room. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your return, Lady Sif?”

“I assume by now you’ve heard of Asgard’s ruin?” she said, keeping her eyes on him with a warrior’s focus.

“Ah, yes…I regret that I did not manage to acquire more from your world before it was lost…” Tivan drawled, folding his gloved hands together. “Unfortunately Asgardians are somewhat…troublesome to Collect.”

Sif’s eyes narrowed at him and she raised her chin slightly as she regarded him coolly. “I’ve come to reclaim that which I previously left in your care.”

“I see…” Tivan hummed, tilting his head thoughtfully from one side to the other in contemplation. “And why...should I return it to you?”

“Choose your words carefully, Taneleer,” she said warningly. “Those of us who survived Ragnarok did not do so by chance. You would be ill-advised to cross those of us who remain. The King of Asgard would have his property returned to him.”

Chuckling softly in amusement, Tivan picked a small cylinder idly up from the worktable between them, toying with it. “Yes…I’m sure that he would…” he mused, then turned with surprising speed to hurl the object at the woman.

The cylinder exploded with a blinding flash of light and sent Sif flying back to crash through a set of shelving. Opening a drawer in his worktable, Tivan pulled out a long rod that sparked and crackled with energy as he switched it on. Looking it over with a self-satisfied smile, the Collector casually approached the wreckage and the body lying in it, swinging the rod before him to some unheard beat.

“I wonder which of Asgard’s kings would reclaim such a prize… Thor? Or Loki.” Trusting the rod forward, Tivan drove the energy into the prone form with malicious glee and a man screamed in answer. The Collector held it to him for a few long moments before he withdrew, smiling broadly in satisfaction. “Did you think I would not know you? You upset my brother very much…very much indeed… En will be relieved to know that you are found…perhaps he will even allow me to keep you. The last King of Jötunheim would be a welcome addition to my Collection…”

“Okay, working on a new plan,” Quill whispered from where he crouched beside Gamora, his blaster in hand.

“I told you this was a bad plan…” Drax grunted as he watched the Collector drive the shock rod down into the man’s body again, producing another chorus of screams. “We should attack him now, while he’s distracted.”

“And what, hope that he’ll give _us_ the stone instead of pulling out another toy?”

“Wait,” she said, having never taken her eyes off the scene below them. ‘Lady Sif’ had been a stranger to her, but Loki? Loki she remembered…and the trickster was not to be underestimated.

Gamora was not in the least surprised to see a hand snap out to grab at the rod suddenly, yanking it free of the Collector as a pair of boots kicked him away savagely. Though admittedly she was a little caught off guard to see that the hand was _blue_. A part of her almost wished that Tivan had been successful in his endeavors to subdue the bastard son of Jötunheim. Gamora hadn’t known him long before she and Nebula had left their father’s side to join Ronan in hunting the Infinity Stones, but it had been long enough to leave an impression. Loki’s presence was going to complicate things.

“You must not know my family very well if you think a little _electricity_ is going to suffice,” the man bit out scathingly as he rose to his feet, his illusions shattered. The rod froze over in his grip and he broke it cleanly over his knee, tossing the pieces aside before dusting himself off facetiously. “Really, I thought you’d put some effort into researching your Collection.”

Pulling himself up off the floor, Tivan gritted his teeth at the insult as he jabbed open another panel, reaching in for another ‘toy’ just as Quill had predicted. “I will endeavor to do better, Your _Majesty_ ,” he very nearly growled, whirling to level the new weapon on Loki. And then he froze as he looked into his face, going suddenly pale with fear. “No…”

Surprised by the sudden change in the man, Gamora looked at Loki, only to find a similar confusion in his expression, though it was quickly masked. The icy blue ridges of his true nature were slowly fading back to the pale smoothness that she remembered, but his eyes were not the crimson she would have expected of a frost giant, nor were they the pale green of her memory.

They were a startling, vibrant amber.

“Please,” Tivan begged softly, dropping the device he’d been holding as he scrambled back away from Loki. “I didn’t know…I didn’t realize…”

“The Aether, Tivan,” Loki said coldly, approaching the man with a slow, menacing grace.

“Yes, yes of course!” the Collector agreed readily this time, fumbling in his pockets to draw out a keycard with shaking hands. His breath coming in quick, fearful pants, he struggled to fit it into a slot in his desk, then the card slid home with a soft chime and released a pressurized compartment. Reaching inside, Tivan drew out a black casket in both hands, bowing his head as he held it out in offer. “Take it, please…take it and _go_.”

“Pray to your gods that our paths never cross again,” Loki said darkly, his eerie eyes intent upon the casket. “And I suggest that you think twice before attempting to acquire any Asgardians into your Collection. Or the Jötnar, for that matter.” Tivan’s white-haired head bobbed quickly in agreement and Loki reached out to claim the Aether from him.

Gamora got there first.

With a fierce battle cry, she flung herself over the balcony to land between them, sending Loki flying backward with a sharp strike to his sternum. In a continuation of the same motion, Gamora grabbed the casket out of the startled hands of Taneleer Tivan and followed Quill’s plan. She _ran like hell_.

“ _Gamora!_ ” she heard Loki roar from behind her. “ _Wait_ , you-“ His words cut off as Quill released a volley of blaster fire at him, boots igniting as he jumped down from the upper landing and then took off after Gamora.

As she darted out of the museum and raced back toward the spaceport, Gamora could hear Drax laughing gleefully and the sound of shattering glass that suggested he was currently smashing open the Collector’s boxes. _“ **Now** I like this plan!” _ he cheered as he unleashed utter mayhem upon Loki and Tivan. Though she’d like to think that he was attempting to cause a distraction and slow pursuit, Gamora suspected Drax was mostly doing it because he wanted to.

“Drax, move your _ass!_ ” Quill yelled into the comms as he followed Gamora, not hesitating to use his boots to keep up with her enhanced speed. “Stick to the plan!”

 _“I am certain that this was part of the plan!”_ Drax chorused joyfully.

“Drax, if you’re not on that ship by the time we start her up, I will _leave you here!_ ” Gamora growled, vaulting over a vat of something that smelled truly foul.

 _“Please do **not** leave Drax behind,”_ Mantis protested suddenly.

 _“Sounds like everything’s really going great,”_ Rocket said sarcastically. _“By the way, that escape pod? It landed ten minutes ago.”_

“ _Please_ tell me that Nebula is on it,” Gamora ground out through her teeth.

 _“Yeah, I’ve been working on that, but it’s not like I’m on the fucking colony,”_ Rocket pointed out. _“Groot, if you don’t stop playing with that thing, I swear I’m gonna smash it! That beeping is pissing me off.”_

Drax, who had finally followed after them judging by the way they could hear him panting through the comm unit, suddenly gave a shout of surprise.

 _“Drax?”_ Mantis asked worriedly. _“What is it? What’s happening?”_

 _“A wolf just knocked me over,”_ Drax grunted. _“Watch yourself, Quill, that beast is **fast**.”_

“A wolf?” Quill blurted out in surprise, turning in midair to check behind them. “What the…why are we being chased by a _wolf?_ ”

“It’s not a wolf, it’s _Loki!_ ” Gamora yelled back at him and then leapt up onto the rooftops to find herself a more direct path.

“Why is he a wolf?” Quill demanded a little frantically, firing a few blasts back at Loki.

 _“I thought that Loki was a woman,”_ Drax said in confusion.

“What? Were you paying attention at _all_ back there?”

_“There was too much talking…I took a nap.”_

_“Uh…guys?”_ Rocket broke in hesitantly. _“I managed to get into the security feed from the spaceport.”_

“You see the escape pod?” Quill prompted quickly and Gamora loved him for it even as her hearts pounded in sudden anxiety from the reluctance in Rocket’s voice.

 _“Yeah…but Nebula wasn’t on it,”_ the raccoon admitted grimly. _“Judging by the armor...it’s more freaking Asgardians.”_

Though Thor had been aware of Knowhere for more than half of his very long life, he’d been very fortunate in not ever having been there before today. Their escape from _Sanctuary II_ had been largely uneventful, despite its rocky start and their brief detour. Thor imagined that had more to do with Loki’s magic than luck on their part, but he was grateful all the same, however much he longed to hit something that could _bleed_. He’d attempted to speak with the Asgardian they’d liberated from the holding cells, but the woman had only moaned and curled into a corner of the escape pod, hiding from him in the shroud of her hair. It only fanned the flames of his rage to know how his people had suffered at Thanos’ hand, hoping beyond measure that any other survivors of the attack had not suffered similarly.

“Can’t you help her, brother?” Thor had murmured to Loki quietly as the sorcerer piloted the small craft toward the impossibly massive carcass that housed Knowhere.

Loki had given him a rather pointed look, nodding back at her. “I _have_ helped her,” he’d pointed out coolly.

Sighing, Thor had gestured at himself, at the wounds now gone that he vividly remembered suffering through. “I mean to _heal_ her, Loki.”

Staring at him blankly, Loki had opened his mouth, closed it and then shaken his head, directing his attention back out the viewport. All attempts at conversation ended much the same, with Loki either rebuffing his efforts or ignoring them entirely. There were moments where he thought the trickster wanted to say something, seeming conflicted, but then his mouth would tighten and the feeling would pass. It was hardly the first time Thor had been faced with Loki’s wrath, but it bothered him more now than it ever had before. He knew it unwise to let his emotions cloud his mind while they were still so very much in danger, but it felt… _wrong_.

Arriving on Knowhere certainly hadn’t helped to dissipate the feeling and in fact it likely exacerbated the foreboding sense that something was amiss. The air within the ancient cranium seemed thick and charged by an energy he’d never felt before, an old, primal power that acted in direct opposition to the artificial life support systems that had been established within. It made his skin feel over-tight where it stretched over his frame, even as the cold void beyond the atmospheric barriers threatened to swallow his mind.

“Are you well?” Loki asked in concern once they’d landed, regarding him carefully.

Shaking his head, Thor scrubbed a hand over his face and shuddered, though in all honesty the question seemed almost laughable. How could he possibly be well? How could _any_ of them be? “No,” he said simply in answer, closing his eye tightly. “I don’t think I can remain here overlong.”

“We need only to secure better transport,” Loki said reassuringly. “Perhaps you should remain here in the meantime.”

“ _No_ ,” Thor barked immediately, his eye snapping open to glare at him. “I _will not_ leave your side. Do _not_ ask me to stay behind again, Loki.”

The sorcerer looked taken aback by the vehemence of his words, his eyes widening slightly as that glimmer of hurt reappeared in them briefly before they went hard. “Then let us not tarry. The sooner we leave this quadrant, the better.”

Thor’s brow furrowed slightly at the sense of wrongness which pulled at him even as he nodded slowly, regarding Loki closely. There was a formality to his words that rankled, something off that he couldn’t place with the discordant buzz of energy pulsing in his mind. He felt a little dazed as he followed Loki out of the small shuttlecraft and into the rancor of the spaceport, the reality around him seeming almost dreamlike for the chaos of it. Loki had to help the Asgardian woman walk again, and Thor wasn’t sure he would have been able to lend his help even if she would allow him near her, but he kept glancing back worriedly to ensure the god of thunder wasn’t lost in the throng.

Distantly he was aware of the trickster charting them passage off the colony with an Arcturan wearing the rust-colored leathers favored by Ravagers, but he couldn’t focus in on what was said or exchanged between them. Something was happening or about to happen, Thor was certain of it, the weight of prescience pressing in upon him. Something _terrible_.

The Ravager made a startled sound when Loki suddenly stumbled and Thor watched in dawning horror as his guise fell away in a shimmer of golden light. “No,” he moaned as the realization hit him like a physical hurt, shaking his head in anguished denial. The false trickster turned slowly to look up at him now that she was revealed and Thor’s stomach dropped in shock. “By the Norns… _Sif_.”

Lady Sif gave her king a tight smile, shifting her hold on the Asgardian woman now that she was returned to her natural frame. “Thor,” she said simply in answer.

“How did you…where were…” Thor shook his head, hardly able to process his elation and _relief_ to see her alive after fearing her dead for so many months, as lost to him as the Warriors Three. But now was not the time for happy reunions, not when he was caught in one of Loki’s ploys. “Where is he?”

The hurt he’d seen before flickered over her face before she walled off her emotion behind a mask of anger. “Has he ensnared you so that there is no longer any other thought in your head?” she bit out.

“You don’t understand what-“

“I understand _enough!_ ” she shouted at him and Thor paled slightly at the realization that he’d kissed _Sif_ when he’d believed her to be Loki. “It’s _you_ who does not. You cannot possibly understand what he…what I must…” Words seemed to fail her and she shook her head in frustration, her words coming now with a quiet rage that Thor had not known her capable of. “Loki has wronged me in ways you cannot comprehend. I neither know nor care where he is now, except to say that I am certain he is serving his own purpose.”

“Sif…” Thor whispered, his heart aching at the cold, stark fury of her words. He found himself reminded suddenly of Heimdall, of the anger and resentment the Gatekeeper had also borne toward Loki for his actions. What did it say about this thing they shared between them that those closest to Thor were so wounded by it, as though they were little more than collateral damage.

Seeing some of his doubts play across his face, Sif’s expression softened slightly and she spoke to him earnestly, gesturing at the ship of the waiting Ravager. “Come with me now, Thor. We can return to Midgard, to your people and face whatever comes next as we were meant to. As warriors of Asgard.”

Looking up at the ship, Thor pictured it just as she described; returning to Earth and facing the end of all things at her side in a battle that would surely be Asgard’s final hour. He had no illusions about his chance of defeating Thanos as he was now, not while the titan held even a single Infinity Stone in his thrall, but Thor would make it such an end. It would be a good death, a _worthy_ death.

_‘Not even once could you do as you were meant to.’_

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, shaking his head slowly and unsure if his apology was meant for Loki or Sif. “Thanos _will_ kill him, Sif.”

Her expression shuttered closed again, anger tightening her jaw. “Asgard needs her king.”

“And Loki is as much her king as I,” he told her, resolved to this course. “We need him for what’s to come.”

“You mean to say that _you_ need him,” she spat angrily.

“Yes,” Thor agreed easily, looking at her steadily despite the way the air still pulled his senses awry. “I do need him. He’s all I have left.”

Mouth twisting bitterly, Sif turned away from him, her voice thick with grief as she said, “Then you deserve each other, and all the torment that will bring.” Still bracing the bedraggled woman, who sagged pathetically with every step, Sif led her away and boarded the Ravager ship, never looking back at Thor.

He watched her go miserably, some part of him aching to follow her even as he knew he must follow his own path in this, wherever it may lead him. That didn’t mean that he could bear to look away from her as the bay doors began to close, the ship priming for ascent. In the moments before the doors were sealed, concealing the women within the skin of the craft, his eye at last met those of the Asgardian they’d freed.

Time seemed to stand still as Hela slowly smiled at her brother and Thor’s shout of warning was lost to the roar of massive engines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Mentions of past captivity, trauma, and mutilation. Kissing without consent, brief torture by electrocution and implied past female castration.


	3. Actuality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...it's been a while. Very sorry to have gone dark for so long. Last year was...difficult. I'm trying to get back to a place where I'm creating regularly again, starting with this long overdue chapter.
> 
> All my love to ravenfyre for the beta work (and encouragement) as always.

“Thought I might find you here,” Bucky remarked as he pulled himself up onto the roof of Shuri’s lab. Like Steve, he’d elected to remain in his combat flak despite the lateness of the hour, ready to be called to action, if needed.

Sparing Bucky a smile, Steve was pleased for the intrusion into his silent contemplation of the stars. “We’re a long way from Brooklyn.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth quirked upward and he rolled his eyes as he dryly replied, “I noticed.”

“Be worried if you didn’t,” Steve said and grinned. “It’s too damn quiet, for one.”

It was the quiet that had driven him from the room that had been offered once the immediate worry over the Asgardian encampment had passed. With T’Challa’s ambassador on scene and the impending clash against the JTF averted by a quick swaddling of politics, all they could do was wait for the reports to come in. The too still night and the uncertainty over what was happening up north left an itch under his skin that had sent him out and up, as though he needed to make sure the world was still turning.

“It’s even quieter out in the villages…makes the passing wildlife seem alien when they start in. It takes some getting used to,” Bucky agreed, settling down beside Steve. “You’d probably have an easier time sleeping back in the Golden City.”

“I don’t sleep much as it is,” Steve admitted, folding an arm back to pillow his head as he stared up into the night sky.

“Nightmares?” Bucky asked softly, looking down at him.

Making a soft sound of assent, Steve nodded slightly. “That and the serum. You, too?”

“Not as bad as I did before Shuri set my head straight.” He reclined back with a sigh and they lay side by side for a while in comfortable silence. It was both strange and familiar, far removed from the sun baked rooftops of Brooklyn, the air coal-tinged and filled to bursting with the life of the city. There was still a hum of life to the night here, something primal and wild mixed in with the distant sounds of technology drifting up out of the vibranium mine, but they might as well have been on another planet entirely.

“Do you remember the ice?” Bucky wondered, his voice pitched low out of deference to the night.

Tensing at the question, Steve closed his eyes briefly, because of course Bucky would go for the hard questions. At least in the stillness of the night, speaking the truth didn’t leave him feeling quite so exposed, despite knowing that Bucky’s vision was likely as good as his own, even in the dark.

“I remember the water,” he replied. “And the cold. The ice…came later.” Steve could feel the weight of Bucky’s gaze on him, but kept his eyes firmly up at the expansive star field above.

“How long did it take?” Bucky asked with growing realization, but Steve didn’t have an answer for him. Propping himself up on his elbow, Bucky glared down at him, banked anger lacing his words. “Steve, how long were you conscious before you froze?”

Steve found his eyes in the darkness and sighed, scrubbing a hand over his beard before he murmured, “Long enough.”

“Long enough that you could have _escaped_ , you mean,” Bucky accused him furiously. “You’re saying that you were going to let yourself _die_.”

There was no need to answer, his reticence was just as damning as his words. The fact that Steve _hadn’t_ died was of little consequence, because in that moment he’d given up completely. A familiar pang of guilt and regret went through him at the memory of forcing down Hydra’s Valkyrie, of water all around him, numbing him down to his core where he welcomed the cold against the raw, aching hurt.

“You were gone,” he whispered hollowly. “The mission was done and without Hydra, without _Schmidt_ , I knew it would only be a matter of time before we won the war. I’d watched you fall a few days earlier and as the cold came in all I could think about was...was how your body was lying somewhere in the snow.”

Bucky’s expression was unreadable in a way it had never been before the Winter Soldier, his eyes shadowed just enough that Steve had to guess at how he was handling the confession. “Do they know?” he wondered softly.

Sitting up to brace his elbows on his knees, Steve sighed and shrugged. “I never told the doctors at S.H.I.E.L.D. about it, but I think Nat has always suspected it. Tony figured it out, though he never said it directly. He’s too good at figuring out problems he wants to solve.”

Brow furrowing at his words, Bucky asked, “And you needed solving?”

“Tony solves everyone,” Steve diverted tiredly, feeling a regretful twist of loss in his chest to speak about the man. He didn’t really want to get into the tangle of his failed relationship with Howard Stark’s only son and so pressed on. “Coming out of the ice was…difficult. In my head, I had just left a war zone where I lost my best guy…then suddenly I’m surrounded by people who are telling me I lost a lot more than that. Everyone was acting like I’d been rescued, but it felt like…like I’d been stolen.

“ _Everything_ was different. It wasn’t just food or clothing or technology or any one damned thing. They _spoke_ and _moved_ differently. Avoided touch like everyone else was diseased, even though they were all so obsessed with hygiene. I…I was like Dorothy in Oz. Like an alien.” He laughed derisively, threading his fingers through the too-long strands of his hair. “And then I _met_ an alien and found out it was easier to pretend I could do all this behind Cap’s shield. If I’m honest, Buck, I don’t think I really believed I could fit back in the world until I saw you again.”

Shaking his head, Steve gave him a wry, tired smile, feeling the full weight of his years on him, though the rational part of him knew that he was just being maudlin. “I know it doesn’t compare. Hell, it doesn’t even come _close_ to what you went through.”

Bucky didn’t answer for a good while, taking it all in and turning it over in silent deliberation for long enough that Steve seriously worried he might have told him too much too soon. “Yeah…at least you came out of it with two arms,” Bucky said finally and though Steve could tell he was still upset by what he’d revealed, he wore a small tease of a smile. Slowly, he slung his arm around Steve the way he might have done before all of this, though it was hard to say whether the hesitation was for his benefit or Bucky’s. “Why compare it? Don’t think there’s meant to be some grand prize for shittiest life.”

Huffing out a laugh, Steve relaxed into the contact with something like relief, leaning into the solid warmth of Bucky’s form. Casual touch was something that had been afforded to him only rarely in the last ten years and it bothered him more than he’d realized, enough that it almost made Steve wish that his feelings toward his oldest friend had remained firmly planted in the platonic. Except for his brief attempts at romantic entanglement, most of the physical contact he shared with other people was either violent or formal, contact between men especially having become so much more stigmatic than it had been in the forties. Sam, with his military background, understood to a point, but even he would instinctively distance himself from Steve at times.

“It could definitely be worse,” Steve murmured softly, grateful beyond measure that he was lucky enough to get a second chance at this. That was, of course, when his phone chimed with an inbound text.

Groaning, Bucky rolled his eyes and glared at Steve, drawing away so that he could check the offending tech. “You just had to say it.”

Waving him off with a brief grin, Steve checked the screen and then frowned. “It’s Nat.”

“Trouble?” Bucky asked, going still with a soldier’s alertness.

“Maybe. Nat doesn’t text. Not me, anyway. She hates that I never remember to silence my phone,” he explained and read through the brief message.

Blockquote H rerouted to BA. Situation changed. Remaining on site. /blockquote

His frown deepening at the message, Steve reread it a few times to be sure there wasn’t something he was missing. Thanks to the initial report from T’Challa’s team, he was already aware that Bruce had departed with Tony, Vision and an unknown third party and it was of no surprise that they’d be headed to New York, even if Tony had vacated his tower. Steve had trusted Natasha to brief him on the situation once she had it covered but this…wasn’t much to go on.

 _“Yes?”_ Natasha’s voice was clipped and hard over his speaker when she answered his call and Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky.

“Nat? Something going on I should know about?”

 _“No,”_ she replied shortly.

With the possible exception of Nick Fury, Natasha was easily the best liar Steve knew, but it was almost painfully obvious now that something was very much awry. “Why are you staying in Norway?”

There was hesitation on the other line before Natasha took a deep breath and burst out, _“I have already sent thee a message, Steven Rogers!”_

Eyes widening, Steve shared a surprised look with Bucky as a sharp crackle of electricity sounded on the other end of the line, accompanied by peals of laughter from a second woman he didn’t recognize. Bucky gave him a look to say that this was what he deserved for daring to suggest that things could be worse, but his brow was furrowed in some concern. Steve was sure his expression only became more dumbfounded when Natasha began cursing rather violently and with the sorts of invectives that he’d only ever heard from-

“Nat...are you… Why do you… Look, I might be totally off base right now, but you’re kind of talking like...Thor,” he said hesitantly.

 _“I shall handle the situation in due course,”_ Natasha all but growled at him. _“I have no desire to hold verbal discourse with thee until that time.”_

“Nat, what-” But the screen went dark as she disconnected the call, leaving Steve staring at his phone in bewilderment. He barely had time to consider how likely she was to cause him grievous bodily harm should he call her back when it lit up again. Sighing when he read the ID, he connected the call and said, “Sharon? Please tell me something reassuring.”

The line was silent for long enough that Steve actually checked to be sure he’d picked it up before she wryly told him, _“You’re aging well?”_

Huffing out a laugh, Steve pinched at the bridge of his nose and shook his head wearily. “Nevermind, just give it to me straight.”

 _“I didn’t think you were still into that,”_ she teased and Steve felt his face go hot as he hissed, “ _Sharon_ ,” in as chastising a tone as he could muster. Sharon laughed hard enough that he thought she probably needed it and could only regret that it came at his expense. He wished that he wasn’t in the habit of using speakerphone at times like this to keep from being rude. _“Sorry, Steve,”_ she said without remorse, her smile obvious in her tone. _“It’s been a weird day.”_

“Tell me about it,” he commiserated, then guessed, “Wanda?”

 _“What else?”_ Sharon sighed, her mirth fading away. _“Thought I should give you a heads up that she just left. With Vision.”_

Stiffening in surprise, Steve tightened his hold on the phone and asked, “Willingly?”

 _“This would be a very different conversation if it weren’t,”_ she promised him, steel in her voice. _“Apparently he’s finally realized how bad off she is and is now graciously attempting to help her.”_

“Are you following them?”

 _“Of course I’m following them, Steve. Jesus, give me some credit here,”_ Sharon scolded him in exasperation and Steve couldn’t help but smile at that. _“I’ll let you know when I’ve figured out where they’re going. Assuming Vision doesn’t laser me.”_

“Please try not to be lasered,” he said solemnly, only half-joking.

 _“No promises,”_ she replied and ended the call.

“Was that the blonde you kissed in Berlin?” Bucky asked and Steve was entirely grateful that his phone went off _again_ to alert him to the string of texts he’d received while on the phone with Sharon, quickly busying himself in reading through them.

> tiny is out 

> hit up hawk’s nest 

> said he’d shoot me if I talked shop 

> guess that means he’s out 

> ladyhawk gave me pie 

> time for r/r? 

Steve didn’t try to guess at what the string of emoji that accompanied Sam’s final text of ‘#wakandaforever’ might mean, sure that he’d only disapprove if he knew. Sighing a little, he sent a reply asking that Sam divert his course to New York instead. He knew before he sent the text that Sam was going to resent him for it and wasn’t surprised by the string of angry and weeping faces that followed.

“It’s Sam,” he said eventually for Bucky’s benefit, pocketing his phone when it continued to chime out Falcon’s displeasure at his new orders. There was no question that Sam would do what was needed, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t razz Steve a while. “He tried getting in contact with Clint and Scott, but it looks like they’re out of whatever comes next. They’ve both got families, so I can’t say that I’m surprised. He’s headed for New York now.”

“You headed that way, too?” Bucky asked, tilting his head.

“I’m not sure, yet,” he admitted, brushing back his hair where it had fallen into his eyes. It really was far too long. “We still don’t know what’s happened up in Norway, but...I can’t help but feel like New York might need help. Maybe I’m just being paranoid now that Bruce is back on the board.”

“I trust your instincts, Steve,” Bucky assured him, getting to his feet with a stretch. “Always have. Just tell me where you need me and I’ll be there.” _Till the end of the line_ , went unspoken between them, but Steve felt the promise down to his bones as he accepted the hand Bucky offered him, pulling him to his feet. “Even if you are a punk who just jinxed us.”

Steve laughed, but it rang hollow in the warm night air as the bad feeling toward the coming days settled uncomfortably below his ribcage. Things could be worse...and he was almost certain that they very soon would be.

_‘What were you the god of again?’_

Though his feet were firmly planted beneath him, Thor felt as though he had been cast back into the sea; like the air had stolen from him as the waves threw him about. The Ravager ship was still ascending, rising smoothly upward as though it did not carry death within its hold. Hela...Hela was on that ship. Hela was _alive_ , even in the wake of Ragnarok. Asgard laid waste for naught.

And Sif...Sif had _no idea_ who Hela was or what dangers awaited her now! With a dismayed cry, Thor reached toward the ship and called the full force of his power to bear, for he could _not_ unleash his sister upon the universe again. But even as he called for thunder and lightning and the ferocity of the storm, he felt no answering call. No spark, no hint of a breeze or rumble of warning. He was powerless.

 _Unworthy_.

Thor’s stomach plummeted as though he were falling, as though the gravity within Knowhere had failed him utterly as he stared helplessly after the departing ship and could not bring the slightest hint of his power to bear. Distantly he knew that he should move, that he should leap after the vessel and bring it down with fist and fury, but even unbalanced as he was, he could not seem to bring his body to move from where it had rooted. The vibration in the air which had so plagued him since entering Knowhere’s strange atmosphere reached a crescendo that threatened to overwhelm his senses. He barely took notice when something green darted past him in a flash of movement, nor of the streak of auburn leather and chrome that followed in its wake.

Something pulled at the edge of his awareness then and Thor turned, not after those that had run past but in the direction from whence they’d come and it was there that he saw him. Black as pitch, yet with fur as iridescent as a raven’s wing, Loki the wolf stood some ten meters off, staring back at Thor in turn as he panted through sharp, white teeth. The sight of him was an anchor point in the maelstrom of his thoughts, but even as he opened his mouth to call to him, Loki was running.

“Loki!” he shouted after the retreating figure as his body stumbled forward into motion at last.

It wasn’t nearly enough, not with Loki on four legs and clearly not interested in being caught, and Thor cursed when he realized the wolf was headed for one of the docked ships. Diverting his course, he dashed back to the escape pod he and Sif had abandoned. Thor would be _damned_ if he was going to let Loki abandon him on _Knowhere_ while Hela and Thanos tore the galaxy apart. Whatever missteps Thor had taken did not entitle Loki to treat him like an _invalid_ and he would damn well make his sorcerer accept that. Things were so much easier when Thor could simply beat the concept into him. Not that the last decade had proven that tactic to be particularly successful.

Grabbing hold of a bold little creature that had already been trying to break into the shuttle, Thor flung it backward and opened the hatch. Sif had done the majority of the piloting on their way in, but adrenaline and desperation had him jabbing at launch sequences that seemed familiar enough and the craft hummed back to life. Across the port, Thor could see Loki’s ship already beginning to lift off and he snarled, slapping at the panel until his own began to rise, though not before shooting off a few sullen sparks at the treatment. He nearly careened into another craft that shot past him at more speed than Thor knew to coax out of the vessel and he cursed at it, muttering a prayer to the All-Fathers that he at least made it out of the space port.

The Ravager ship was well out of sight by the time he navigated the pod out into the void beyond the nebulous web of Knowhere’s limited atmosphere. Even the sudden cold that gripped at his heart from the abyss was preferable to the hum of energy that had pervaded his mind upon the mining colony and Thor steeled his resolve as he got his vessel moving after Loki’s. If he could just get to the sorcerer, just open a line of communication between them, then perhaps they might still be able to get to Sif and take on Hela before she had a hope of regaining her strength. Thor knew with a certainty that above all else he _could not_ allow Loki to return to Thanos, especially if he was now in possession of the Aether. Had he weaponry aboard the pod, he would shoot his erstwhile brother down before permitting that to happen.

Apparently, Loki felt similarly.

“Oh,” he breathed out as the bright blaze of a weapons discharge broke off from Loki’s vessel where it sped away from him, bright as a star as it overtook Thor's field of vision. And then everything around him exploded into fire and wrath before it was consumed by the vacuum of space.

Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time Stone.

Strange woke from his fitful doze with a start, looking around uncomprehendingly for a moment before his rational mind could process higher thought. The London Sanctum. It was far less familiar a sight than his own, but after piecing it back together with the Time Stone he was fairly well acquainted with its form. Lifting a hand to his brow, he rubbed faintly trembling fingers against the ache in his skull, sighing softly. Usually he moved between planes while his body rested, but he must have drifted off before managing even that. Funny how opening intergalactic portals and hurtling your soul across the vast reaches of space seemed to take a toll on the body.

His cloak had settled over him at some point, but it rose and floated about his shoulders properly as he pushed himself upright, moving toward the circular window overlooking the streets of London. Repairing the Sanctum had been his last act before relinquishing his temporary ownership of the Eye of Agamotto years ago. That had been time enough for him to second guess the actions he had taken a thousand times over, to the point where some nights he returned to Kamar-Taj and considered traveling back to try it all again. The Ancient One restored, Kaecilius stopped from ever coming close to invoking Dormammu, Mordo returned to his side… He never did, of course. He had already been far too cavalier with time magic. Even now, Wong had terrible nightmares of his death and resurrection, to the point that he had made Strange vow never to reverse his fate again, and hadn’t _that_ been a sobering conclusion to his seeming victory.

“Galleon for your thoughts,” a voice came from out of the darkness and Strange sighed, closing his eyes to count back from ten. In Mandarin.

“Stark,” he said flatly. “I wouldn’t have thought you up for creeping about a magical construct after hours.”

“Really? Sounds exactly like the sort of ill-advised thing I would do,” the man replied easily.

In his fine Italian suit and sporting a cocky smile, Strange could easily see why the New York socialites who had flitted between their social circles had so often claimed that he and Tony Stark were fated to meet. Looking at Stark was a very vivid reminder of the life he’d once led; of excess and adulation and the assurance that at any one time you were the smartest person in the room. Of course, Strange had never been anywhere _near_ Stark’s tax bracket and while he was well known in his field, both past and present, he had never held such notoriety. Stark, by all accounts, still _reveled_ in his celebrity where Strange had settled firmly into reclusion.

“Is it wise to leave Doctor Banner on his own?” he wondered crossly.

“He has seven degrees and survived interplanetary travel on a _Quinjet_. I think he can handle a nap.”

“So long as it’s still Doctor Banner that wakes up,” Strange stressed.

“How about _you_ worry about your burgeoning career in Vegas, David Blaine, and _I’ll_ worry about my big green friend?” Stark suggested archly.

“You mean the same _friend_ that you _lost_ for nearly three years?”

“You know-“

“Shut up,” Strange said sharply, his brow furrowing as something… _wrong_ pressed at his senses. Stark’s eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise at the abrupt interruption, then drew together indignantly, but Strange held up a hand to forestall him. “No. Shut up. There’s something…” Power licked at the wards of the Sanctum and he straightened, turning. “Someone’s at the door.”

Instinctively, Strange pulled Stark along with him as he shifted to the front door of the Sanctum, distantly bemused to hear the man’s pained groan. Druid was already waiting there, looking pensive and prepared to defend his Sanctum from whatever power lay beyond the wards.

“I hate you so, so much…” Stark muttered under his breath and stumbled back a step, carelessly gripping at an ancient, iron urn.

“Do _not_ throw up into the Cauldron of the Cosmos,” Strange warned, though he kept his eyes warily on the front door.

“Oh, is that what this is?” the billionaire remarked idly and Strange felt a faint tug at his collar before hearing a chastising snap of fabric against flesh. He looked back over his shoulder to see Stark giving him a comically shocked look and raised an eyebrow challengingly. After a moment, Stark glanced away with feigned loftiness and decided, “I’m going to allow that.”

“Stephen,” Druid said softly, drawing his attention back to the matter at hand. “I’m going to open the wards.”

It wasn’t his place to dictate how another ran his Sanctum, but Strange still frowned doubtfully. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Not in the slightest,” he assured him wryly. “But it feels…right. And whoever is out there is likely to tear through them if I delay much longer. I don’t feel that I can safely bring them across otherwise, do you?”

Strange closed his eyes momentarily and tried to focus on the chaotic swell of energy beyond the orderly lines of the Sanctum’s wards, but it shifted and moved unpredictably, making it impossible to even get a clear idea of exactly what lay in wait for them outside. Whoever, or _what_ ever it was, it didn’t feel malevolent, though that was hardly comforting.

“No,” he admitted after a few moments, and tapped his wrists together to activate the defensive charm he’d laid in his wrist bindings. Two circular orange shields sparked into life just beyond his palms as he readied himself. “For the record, this isn’t a good idea.”

“Duly noted,” Druid said calmly as he visualized the ward and began the spell that would open it just enough to allow their guest across the threshold.

“Um, hi? Someone want to key me in on what’s happening?” Stark asked from behind them, the faintest trace of panic in his tone.

“Stand back, Mister Stark,” Strange advised, nodding at Druid to let him know he was ready. “This may be outside your wheelhouse.”

“Get ready,” Druid warned and brought his hands together, then apart.

The doors swung open smoothly as the wards parted to reveal a slight waif of a woman bundled into a grey wool coat, a tall, blond man at her side. Red energy sparked along the parted wards and spilled across the doorframe, an answering glow lighting in the woman’s eyes as she took them in warily. At Strange’s back, Stark’s breath caught as though in recognition and the man cursed softly.

“This sanctuary is protected by the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Kindly state your intentions or go back whence you came,” Strange said firmly and resisted the urge to shake out his fist when he felt a curl of that strange energy flicker over his shield.

“Cool it, Elrond,” Stark sighed and stepped forward, folding his arms across his chest. “This actually _is_ my wheelhouse. Although a little _heads up_ would have been nice.”

“ _Stark_ ,” the woman bit out distastefully, rolling the name through her mouth like a curse as her eyes reddened. Her hands twitched at her sides, but her companion laid a palliative hand on her shoulder and she calmed, mouth tight with displeasure.

“I did attempt to contact you, Mister Stark,” the tall, blond man said calmly and Strange stiffened, then relaxed when his human façade gave way suddenly to a swath of gold, green and violet. “However, I was only able to make contact with FRIDAY on the external servers. She reported this to be your last known location.”

“The wards tend to discourage modern technology,” Strange said as he lowered his shields with a twist of his hands, straightening from his defensive posture. The pulsing eddy of chaotic energy had kept him from recognizing the far more orderly presence of the Mind Stone crowning Vision’s brow, which rather irritated him actually. In fact, now that he was using his damned _eyes_ more than his Sight, he could see that he recognized the woman, as well. “Wanda Maximoff. I had wondered when our paths might cross.”

Wanda, who had been watching Stark as one might a rabid dog, gave him a guarded look. “Do I know you?”

“I keep a watch list of individuals that could prove to be a threat to this world…or who may be useful in saving it. After your performances in Lagos and Berlin, I thought it prudent to add you to that list. No offense,” Strange added.

Arching a brow at his candor, Wanda nodded once, though the mention of Lagos drained the color from her face somewhat. None of them mentioned it, for they were all more than familiar with the pain of regret.

“Perhaps we can move this to a more civilized setting,” Druid said patiently, the strain of holding open the portal threading faintly through his tone.

“That would be much appreciated,” Vision agreed, stepping over the threshold. A faint ripple of energy shivered through him as the Mind Stone and the unique peculiarity of his being met with the saturation of old magic woven into the fabric of the Sanctum. After a moment, he nodded to himself, then turned back and offered a hand to his companion, giving her a small nod of reassurance.

Wanda’s wide, green eyes cast over them all, wary and watchful as a feral cat, but she stepped forward cautiously, taking Vision’s outstretched hand. The building seemed to shudder somewhat under the tentative fall of her boots and a swath of red rolled out from her in a wave, consuming the building about them. Strange stumbled back a step in shock as the clean lines of the Sanctum suddenly gave way to smooth pavement and stately verge beneath a foggy London sky, still and barren in the darkness, though lit with solemn spotlights. Turning, he caught sight of Stark’s pale, shaken expression and knew that he was not alone in this apparition, though there was a shade of something else in his eyes.

Something like fear.

“What happened?” Druid asked softly, though he sounded hesitant to be the first to break the silence. “Where are we?”

“Wanda?” Vision queried gently, but the woman shook her head, as wide-eyed as the rest of them.

“I don’t…I don’t know. I don’t _know!_ ”

A faint tug from his cloak had Strange turning fully around to take in a squat monolith at his back. Approaching it cautiously, he leaned in to read the engraving on the slick marble.

> In Remembrance  
>  of those innocent victims  
>  whose lives were tragically lost  
>  in the terrorist bombing on 20th October, 2015.
> 
> The City will endure. 

“No,” Strange breathed in denial, shaking his head once as though to clear the vision from his sight. He’d used the Time Stone to _prevent_ this ever happening.

“It isn’t real,” Stark murmured to him in low tones, putting a steadying hand on his arm. “It feels real, but it isn’t. It’s _her_.” He sounded more confident than he looked when Strange glanced over at him, wide-eyed and pale in the dim light. But the billionaire’s jaw was set with enough determination that Strange found himself nodding all the same.

As quickly as it had come, the world about them changed in another wash of red and he breathed out in relief to see the Sanctum restored. Only…it wasn’t the Sanctum at all.

“Oh!” a smartly dressed woman holding a stack of menu’s came to an abrupt halt as she caught sight of the motley crew that had suddenly appeared in the lobby of what appeared to be a fine dining establishment. Her gasp seemed to echo almost over the low murmur of conversation and faint tinkling of silverware against china that drifted in from the dining area and the menus clapped together as she dropped them to raise a hand to her mouth in horror. Her eyes went round and fearful as she backed away from them, edging toward the doors. “M…mutants!”

“Mutants?” Stark repeated in confusion, giving a quick glance about them to be sure they weren’t about to be set upon.

Though her gasp hadn’t been enough to catch the attention of the restaurant goers, this single, fearfully uttered word sent a hush over throughout the dining area. For a moment there was only shocked silence as people turned to look, then a hum of panicked chatter rippled through the crowd, a few going for their phones.

“Still not real?” Strange asked Stark, sharing a concerned look with Druid. From the look on the other magician’s face, it was clear that he similarly felt the strangeness of this world, like a shoe on the wrong foot.

“Honestly, I’ve got nothing,” Stark replied with a frown, looking at his own phone. “As in literally no connection any of my satellites. Vision?”

“Something called ‘Sentinel Services’ has been dispatched to our location,” the android replied calmly. He appeared as placid as Wanda did wild, her breath coming in short, shallow pants as she took in their surroundings with wide, red-tinged eyes. No help there, whatever this was.

“Might I suggest we find a less public venue in which to regroup?” Druid spoke with quiet urgency, nodding toward the doors.

“Vision, is Bruce-“

“I am not detecting Doctor Banner’s unique gamma signature,” Vision assured Stark. “I will continue to scan for him, but I can say with certainty that he is not anywhere in our vicinity at this time.”

“Then let’s go figure out where the hell we are,” Strange said curtly and gestured at the doors so that they opened before he reached them, stepping out into the street. It was London, Strange was certain of it, yet that same sense of _wrongness_ still needled at the edges of his awareness.

He hadn’t managed to get more than a few feet out the door before his cloak caught hold of him and yanked him backward. Whirling, Strange was stunned to see that it had not been an independent action of his mystical artifact, but that Stark had the end of it wrapped around his fist and had apparently just jerked him back like an unruly puppy on a lead. Worse, the thrice-damned cloak had _allowed_ it.

“What, exactly, do you think you’re doing?” Strange asked coldly, taking full advantage of his superior height to loom.

“What are _you_ doing?” Stark demanded in answer, frowning at him. “Literally all we know about this is that it started with _her.”_ Here Stark jabbed a sharp hand toward Wanda. “And given that Banner has _not_ joined us on this trip out of Kansas, I think it’s safe to say that there’s a good chance that if you get too far away from our resident witch, you’re getting left behind.”

Of course, that was infuriatingly reasonable and Strange glared down at Stark in annoyance for having thought of it first. He opened his mouth to retort, but the words died in his throat when he became aware of a heavy, rhythmic _something_. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who had noticed, given that Druid had foregone caution to raise his shield charms and the Mind Stone was glowing faintly in Vision’s brow.

“Please tell me those aren’t footsteps,” Stark begged of no one in particular and Strange gave his cloak a small tug to free it from the man’s grip before he turned around.

An immense form was lurching down the road in the dark, streetlamps gleaming off of steel and chrome as servos whirred to move the monstrous form. It was taller than many of the buildings crowding either side of the street, the round lenses of its eyes glowing dully in its shadowed form.

“I take it that’s not one of yours?” Strange said to Stark, a prickling of primal unease creeping up his spine at the sheer mass of the automaton.

Stark shot him a scandalized look. “Of _course_ not!” he insisted, as though the very notion had offended, but Strange could see him squinting at the robot with the faintest hint of uncertainty. “I think…”

Even after the innumerable deaths he’d faced at the hands of a primordial being the size of a _planet_ , some part of his hind brain still begged that he _run_ and _hide_ as it came closer, footsteps sending impact fissures along the pavement. With startling swiftness, it raised a metal hand and a blinding spotlight fixed suddenly upon them.

**“UNIDENTIFIED MUTANTS. SURRENDER FOR REGISTRATION AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.”**

“Are you _sure_ it isn’t yours?” Strange muttered, sparking up his shields once more.

“Red, please start clicking your heels together,” Stark said with a worried furl to his brow, ignoring Strange. “I am _not_ wearing the right suit for this.”

**“TARGETS HAVE FAILED TO COMPLY. USE OF FORCE: AUTHORIZED.”**

Shields raised, Druid moved to stand beside Strange as a red glow bloomed beyond the spotlight, lighting in the center of the robotic giant’s chest as though gathering power. “This is…bad,” he decided grimly. “I hate it when you come to visit, Stephen.”

“ _Wanda_ ,” Stark hissed urgently, tearing his eyes away from the robot to glare at her.

“I’m _trying!_ ” she growled back, her eyes burning like embers as red energy set her hair billowing in some unseen wind.

“Try _harder!_ ”

“It’s preparing to fire,” Vision warned unnecessarily, the Mind Stone blaring to light on his forehead in answer.

“ _Wanda!_ ” Stark shouted as the robot discharged the energy, filling the night air with a horrible, vibrating hum that was felt more than heard. With a frustrated yell, Wanda shoved her hands outward to meet the approaching beam and a wall of red swirled about them, blinding them all. When it faded, they were standing on the steps of the Sanctum, staring out at the nearly empty streets of late night London.

“Uh…” a voice came from within the Sanctum and they looked back to see Dr. Banner coming down the stairs, a furrow of confusion set between his brows. “Hey guys…what’s going on?”

“We’re back,” Strange decided, relaxing into the familiar lines of magic woven about the Sanctum.

“There’s no place like home…” Stark breathed out, sagging slightly in his suit. “Never doubted you for a moment, Red.”

Wanda muttered something in Sokovian that sounded abrasive and swayed slightly on her feet, though Vision caught her before her knees buckled, lifting her easily into the cradle of his arms. Looking at them all in turn, he gave them a small, hapless shrug that was so utterly human that he must have practiced it in a mirror.

“I thought perhaps you might be able to help,” the android said to Strange, though he sounded less confident in his decision now.

“I’m not even sure what just _happened_ ,” he growled irritably, his cloak swirling about him as he strode back inside the relative safety of the Sanctum. The others followed suit and Druid shut the doors behind them once more, checking the wards with a furrowed brow. “Much less how I’m supposed to help.”

“What, inter-dimensional travel isn’t in any of your little spell books?” Stark wondered archly. Though at a glance he appeared outwardly unaffected, his shoulders sat a little too square and his jaw was tense, as though he were chewing through this new data in a very literal sense.

Raising a brow, Strange gave Stark a rather cryptic look, one that he may or may not have practiced a time or two. “I don’t know, why don’t we go consult them?” He smirked as Stark scowled slightly in displeasure. “I think it’s time to go to Kamar-Taj.”

Earth. Kamar-Taj. Time Stone.

Moving closer to Stark, Dr. Banner glanced around at the serious crowd, then leaned in toward his friend. “What’d I miss?”

“Shit shit _shit!_ ” Quill cursed in rapid, emphatic precession as he punched the docking sequence of the _Milano’s_ airlock. “This is bad. Wow, we are _so_ screwed!”

 _“Oh quit yer bitchin’, Quill,”_ Rocket complained over the comms as the shuttle rejoined the life support system with a soft hiss of recycled air. _“It’s not like anyone’s chasin’ you.”_

“Wait, really?” he asked in some surprise.

 _“Not a blip,”_ the raccoon confirmed and the main door slid open to let them back into the _Milano_ proper.

“Any word from Nebula?” Gamora demanded at once, striding out of the pod and toward the cockpit, dropping the Collector’s heavy canister on the table with a thud.

Quickly moving to right it, Quill sounded a bit panicked as he complained, “Let’s maybe be gentle with the ominously glowing canister!”

“This stone appears to be far more impressive than the last one,” Drax commented with an approving look. He seemed in no way concerned that he’d nearly been left behind on Knowhere when Gamora and Quill had bugged out of the spaceport.

With an incredulous look, Quill shook his head in exasperation. “How can you possibly know that?”

“The container is clearly larger,” Drax reasoned.

“I am Groot?”

“Groot, if I see you touch that thing, you are _so_ grounded!” Rocket yelled from over his shoulder.

“I am _Groot_ …” the sapling muttered sullenly in reply.

Ignoring this exchange, Gamora marched down into the cockpit and grabbed Rocket’s chair, swiveling it around toward her. “Well?”

“Hey!” the raccoon protested, baring his teeth at her.

“ _Nebula_ ,” she said forcefully, looming over him. “Has she sent another message?”

“Fucking _no_ , Gamora! Can I go back to piloting the ship now? Or were you wanting to sit around with our collective thumbs up our various assholes to wait for Thanos? Looking for a reunion with dear old _dad?_ ” he snapped bitingly.

“Okay, everyone chill out!” Quill barked sharply and put a quelling hand on Gamora’s shoulder. He managed not to flinch under the glare she shot him, but it was a close thing and he lifted his hand again peaceably. “We’re of no use to Nebula if we’re vaporized. If that thing we nabbed really is an Infinity Stone, then I don’t even want to be in the same _quadrant_ as Thanos.”

Closing her eyes, Gamora straightened and took a slow breath, nodding tightly after a moment. This was what she hated about having allowed herself to open her hearts to others over the last few years. Love made her afraid and turned her fear into a burning, living _thing_ that clawed inside her chest and made her _weak_ for all that it also gave her strength. Quill’s hand found her arm again and this time she allowed the touch, seeking some small comfort in the contact before she turned away to find her seat.

He watched her go with a worried look, then turned his attention back to the grumbling raccoon, who had swiveled forward once more. “Were we followed?”

“You think we’d still be sitting here if you were?” Rocket countered acidly, his clawed paws tapping rapidly over the control screens. “While you three were bugging out, one of the Asgardians started chasing after the thing what was chasing _you_.” Bringing up the grainy footage from Knowhere’s spaceport, Rocket threw it up on the main display so they could see it more clearly. “Soon as your wolf friend sees the Asgardian, it turns tail back toward its ship. Literally. Because it’s a wolf.” Rocket cackled to himself at this, despite that his own tail was currently flipped over the edge of his seat.

Watching the footage, Gamora frowned and rewound it several times to watch the scene play out. She had barely taken notice of the Asgardian in her flight through the spaceport, too focused on the need to escape to pay attention to any one person, though it looked as though the Asgardian in turn had hardly taken heed of her either. Indeed he seemed wholly intent upon the ascending Ravager ship until Loki’s arrival. She watched for a third time as Loki immediately gave up on his pursuit of her as soon as he saw the man, abruptly returning to his ship.

“Where is the Asgardian now?” she asked, brow furrowed.

Grunting, Rocket gestured at the radar screen. “See that debris field?”

“They shot him down?”

“Oh!” Mantis suddenly perked up from behind her terminal. “There is an incoming message! Yes,” she confirmed breathily before Gamora could ask. “It is Nebula.” Without preamble, she connected the call through to Gamora’s terminal.

Gamora immediately wished that she had not.

 _“Hello, daughter,”_ Thanos greeted her, his tone an amalgam of fond warmth and iron disapproval.

“Jam it!” Quill hissed at once, but Rocket’s claws were already tapping over the console, ensuring their position was secure.

“Where is she?” Gamora asked tightly, letting the fear and sorrow sink to a pit in her belly at the sight of the Titan.

The corner of Thanos’ mouth lifted ever so slightly and he shifted to reveal the cyborg suspended behind him. Nebula looked more a disassembled doll than a living being, her body pulled apart at the seams, held together only by the tenuous threads of her circuitry. Her dark, liquid eyes were wide with pain and she shook her head ever so slightly, silently pleading with her sister through the display. A soft sob tore free of Gamora before she could swallow it back and she closed her own eyes against the tears that gathered there.

 _“A father ought to be pleased to see such unexpected love formed between his children,”_ Thanos reasoned, looking between the two of them. _“But I find it disappointing to see how you’ve both let it make you weak._ ” Giving Gamora a solemn, serious look, he lifted his hand to display the golden gauntlet upon it.

A familiar, violet gem glowed from the first knuckle, sending a shiver of sense memory through her. Even years later, the four of them still had sleepless nights where the nightmarish recollection of being filled with the energy of the Power Stone brought them screaming back to consciousness. Or in Drax’s case, howling with the maddened laughter of his battle lust.

It had taken the four of them together to hold the Power Stone on Xandar, but now, with the aid of his gauntlet, the slightest crook of Thanos’ finger drew an awful, haunting sound out of Nebula, something neither organic nor mechanical that had the Guardians flinching away from the speakers. It lasted only a few seconds before the Titan relaxed his grip, giving Gamora a steady look.

 _“I’m told you have something that belongs to me,”_ he said calmly, utterly unaffected by the torture he’d inflicted.

“You’re a _monster_ ,” Gamora hissed at him in answer, shaking her head. She moaned in agony a moment later as Thanos activated the stone again, the edges of the comm unit creaking with protest beneath her tight grip. “ _Stop!_ Stop this, _please!_ ”

 _“The Aether, Gamora,”_ Thanos replied firmly, his expression grim as he relaxed the power again. _“This brings me no pleasure, child…but I’ve come too far. Be reasonable. You know that Proxima can keep your sister alive for as long as it takes to reach the inevitable conclusion._ ”

“ _Reasonable?_ ” she repeated with a harsh laugh. “How is any of this reasonable? You’ll wipe out half of existence and then what? It won’t be enough. You will _never_ be satisfied.”

 _“Perhaps you’re right, daughter,”_ Thanos agreed, then pragmatically activated the Power Stone again. When Nebula’s scream had faded once more, he lifted his ridged chin expectantly. _“But it matters little, in the end. You will give me the Aether.”_

 _“ **No** ,” _Nebula croaked, her voice tortured and discordant. _“G-g-g-gah…mor-mor-mor…a-a-ah… R-r-r-run…”_

“Nebula,” Gamora whispered, a fresh wash of tears slipping free of her. She could feel that she was breaking, that she would soon cave against her better judgement. There were still other stones Thanos had yet to acquire, still other chances to keep the Mad Titan from reaching his goal. She would give him the stone. She would save her sister.

The decision must have shown on her face, because Thanos nodded as though she had just offered it to him and Nebula… The numerous modifications the cyborg had undergone in her life left her with little in the way of facial expression, but Gamora could see the anger, disappointment and fierce determination flit across synthetic flesh in quick succession. A sudden swell of fear rose in her throat as an eerie light suddenly bloomed behind Nebula’s eyes, leaving Gamora in an anguished scream as an explosion blossomed across the screen, shorting out the feed.

“Holy shit,” Quill breathed into the silence that followed, his eyes wide. “Did she- Was that-“

“A bomb,” Mantis said quietly, her antennae drooped solemnly as she worried her hands before her.

“That was a good death,” Drax grunted approvingly, folding his arms over his chest. “I will not begrudge her for usurping my claim on Thanos’ life.”

“Yeah, she…fuck, she must have had some kind of…self-destruct thing,” he finished lamely, crouching beside Gamora. “I’m so sorry, G…” He slid his hand over hers with a gentle squeeze, but she shook her head once, not ready to be comforted. Not ready to face the truth of what had just happened. Her eyes were still fixed on the screen where she’d last seen her sister, tears flowing freely from them. With a sigh, Quill withdrew and straightened.

“I…am Groot?” Groot asked in a small voice, his handheld game clutched to his chest.

Blanching a bit at the obvious distress splayed across Groot’s bark, Quill gave the youth an encouraging smile and held out his arm. “C’mere, bud…sometimes saving the galaxy means sacrificing everything. Like your dad and Yondu…and Nebula. The rest of us…we just gotta keep pushing on, you know?”

“I am Groot,” he replied with gruff bravado, but he still allowed his captain to pull him in to a half hug, looking subdued.

Gamora heard it all as though from a great distance, muted and dull, yet startlingly loud against her eardrums, grating on the raw nerves that had just witnessed her sister’s destruction. So many times they had fought throughout their lives, actively _tried_ to kill the other, yet the sudden reality that Nebula was _gone_ grated against her every perception of the world around her. No. _No._ She rose to her feet suddenly and pushed past the others, swiping a hand brusquely across her face to clear away the tears. They let her go unimpeded, clearly believing that she just wanted to be alone…up until she got to the shuttle.

“Hey, woah!” Quill protested and vaulted across the ship in a few quick bounds to slam the release button on the airlock, keeping it from resealing. “Gamora, what the hell!”

“Let me go, Peter,” she responded coldly, bringing up the coordinates of _Sanctuary II_ on the nav system.

“ _Go?_ Go _where?_ ” he demanded, keeping his body in the door seals. If she overrode the system, they would crush him and he was betting on the fact that she loved him enough to at least hesitate. He was right, but it was still a bad bet because Gamora was _furious_. “Go to _Thanos?_ You saw what happened, he-”

“I saw him wielding an _Infinity Stone_ , Peter. Thanos is still alive,” she stated with a surety.

He pursed his lips, shaking his head once, though doubt furrowed his brow. “You…you can’t know that for sure.”

The tone of a comm request sounded and Mantis hurried to check the monitor. “It…it is an incoming transmission on Nebula’s code,” she announced quietly, confirming what they’d already guessed.

“ _Don’t_ _answer it,_ ” Quill hissed, making a sharp, cutting gesture toward her. “Block that code and go dark.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, then looked back at Gamora. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“He’s going to pay for killing my sister.”

“Nebula killed _herself_ to save _you!_ ” Quill retorted harshly, then grimaced at the betrayed look Gamora rewarded him with. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened, Gamora, I really am. But I’m not about to watch you fly off on a suicide mission because of it! Obviously we’re going with you!”

“What?” she said in some surprise, turning to face him fully.

“ _What?!_ ” Rocket demanded, pushing past where the others had gathered to surreptitiously watch the argument. “The hell we are!”

“Finally, Quill has a plan that makes sense,” Drax said with an approving nod, making Mantis smile uncertainly beside him.

“I am Groot!”

Rocket threw up his paws in consternation, baring his teeth at them all. “Have you lunatics lost what little brain cells you had? That asshole just survived a Hadron particle fusion bomb that was right freakin’ beside him! So how is it you think our merry band of _fuckin’ morons_ will make any difference?”

For a moment, no one answered him, then Gamora slowly got to her feet, giving Rocket a searching look as she realized now how the raccoon had been silent in the wake of Nebula’s death. Rocket always had something to say…unless he felt guilty. “How is it a ‘Hadron particle fusion bomb’ ended up in my sister’s head?” she asked, her voice soft and deadly and Rocket’s ears flattened. With a snarl, Gamora launched herself toward Rocket, giving an angry cry when Quill caught hold of her. “Release me!”

“Hey, whoa! Rocket is _not_ your enemy here!” Quill protested, shifting his body between them.

With Ego long destroyed, it would take very little effort for Gamora to remove Quill from her path, but she did not wish to vent her rage where it was not deserved. That wrath lay solely with Rocket now. “He put a _bomb_ in my sister’s _head!_ ” she roared, shoving at Quill’s arm.

“She _told_ me to!” Rocket countered as he scrambled up Drax like a tree, giving himself some height. Drax seemed morbidly amused by the whole series of events, likely cheered by the thought of having another chance to kill Thanos by his own hand, and gamely remained in place.

“You should have refused her!”

“Yeah, cause _that_ would have gone over real fuckin’ well!”

“That’s enough!” Quill shouted at them, then pointed at Rocket. “You, get us closer to Thanos’ ship. And _you_ ,” he turned his attention to Gamora, “need to get your head on straight. This doesn’t work if _both_ of us are stupid and reckless. There’s no way we can do this if you’re not thinking things through.”

The startling logic of it was enough that Gamora backed down, nodding tightly as she uttered a short, “Fine.”

“Not fine,” Rocket snarled, folding his furred arms across his chest in consternation. “How the hell am I supposed to get us anywhere near that giant emotional insecurity of a ship?”

Quill scowled for a moment, then gestured vaguely. “You said they turned that Asgardian into a debris field, right? Which means scavengers from Knowhere are probably already en route to gather up the pieces.”

Scrubbing his paws over his face, Rocket pulled at his whiskers, then threw up his hands in surrender, hopping down off of Drax to return to the cockpit. “Fine. _Fine!_ For the record, it is _also_ not my fault when we get blown out of the galaxy.”

“Forget everything you think you know,” Strange intoned and his cloak flared out slightly where he stood in the torchlight. They had arranged themselves in a loose circle about an illuminated pedestal that bore an amulet or medallion that looked sufficiently old enough to have earned the presentation. “The mystic arts date back to the very cradle of human civilization. These early masters learned to speak the language of the multiverse and called it ‘spells’. We-“ He closed his eyes a moment and sighed, then asked in resignation, “I take it you have a question, Mister Stark?”

Tony lowered his hand from where he’d raised it patiently and said, “I’m sorry, this speech is off to a very impressive start, great lighting and aesthetics and all, but can we go back to the part where we just walked through a door to _Nepal?_ ”

The sorcerer sighed and looked up at the immense stone globe rotating slowly above them as though to seek some patience there. He looked ready to deliver a scathing remark, but Bruce nodded his agreement with a grimace, arms folded anxiously across his chest. “Actually I’m with Tony on this…what just happened?”

Clearing his throat lightly from the still open doorway to the London Sanctum, Druid held up his hands, weaving them together in the air to draw up two small, sparking circles in the air. “The creation of portals is one of the most rudimentary forms of magic, yet can easily become one of the most dangerous if one is not very careful. Through concentration and the use of either incantations or artefacts, a portal is created that exists simultaneously in two places, creating a sort of bridge across all that lies between them.” A glowing illusion of a person passed between the portals, moving from one to the other before it backed up and stood divided between them. “These doorways are simply a fixed iteration of this spell, activated when the door is unlocked.”

“You _traversed_ a portal before,” Strange ground out irritably, looking rather catlike in his ire. “The whole damned _world_ watched you enter the portal over New York. This is no different.”

Wincing, Bruce made a slight cutting motion by his throat, shaking his head. “We, ah…don’t like talking about that.”

Tony managed a tight smile, brushing off Vision when he laid a reassuring hand upon his shoulder and tried to pretend like he wasn’t shivering at the memory of floating adrift in deep space before an invading alien army. After the merry jaunt Wanda had taken them on and the events of the last day and a half, he felt rather like an exposed nerve. “Hey, I’m fine. No problems here. Continue with the, uh,” he flapped a hand lamely toward the sorcerer, who was giving him a considering look, “magic thing.”

“The mystic arts,” Strange corrected after a moment, somewhat relenting his pique. “The other magicians and I all completed our studies here with the masters at Kamar-Taj, learning to harness energy from other dimensions of the multiverse in order to make…magic.” Turning his attention to Wanda, Strange frowned. “But what you did earlier…was something else entirely.”

Tensing, Wanda wrapped her arms about her middle, looking very young for a moment before she raised her chin determinedly. “What does that mean?”

“The things we do may seem fantastical, but there is a particular order to them, like a program,” Strange explained. “We follow the predetermined code of the multiverse, or write new code within its predefined ruleset. What you did… _ignored_ those rules entirely.” He shook his head, looking somewhere between awe and consternation at the thought of their timeline hopping adventure from earlier. “It shouldn’t have been possible. You simply… _broke_ reality.”

A dark look passed over her face and she shook her head, brow furrowing, “What does _that_ mean?”

“That he has no idea what’s happening to you,” Tony guessed with a snort, earning a glare from both witch and wizard.

“Unfortunately…he’s not wrong,” Strange admitted. “But I also don’t have the time to figure it out.”

“Stephen,” Druid said disapprovingly, but Strange held up a hand.

“I’m completely serious, Anthony. A _war_ is coming, one we are woefully ill prepared for. I’ve _seen_ Thanos. _You’ve_ seen what he’s capable of, Vision,” he gestured toward the android, who nodded solemnly. “And that was _before_ he started gathering Infinity Stones. At this point he has at least two, but he was already preparing to take a third when I left.”

An icy feeling of unease slid along Tony’s spine and he focused on Strange intently. “What do you mean, when you _left?_ ” he asked, frowning.

“When I opened the portal to send Thor back for Loki, I was…dislodged, in a sense. My soul remained on the astral plane aboard Thanos’ ship while my body remained here on Earth. I can’t…remember everything that happened and there’s a great deal that I don’t _want_ to remember,” Strange admitted, and for a moment there was a haunted hollowness to his expression that chilled Tony further. A shell-shocked look that he was all too familiar with. “What I do recall clearly is that Loki helped me return here…and that he was leading Thanos to another stone.”

“Sounds like the capricious lunatic we all know and hate,” Tony commented, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “These are the same Infinity Stones that Thor went looking for a few years back, I take it. Which is why they’ll be coming here, for Vision.”

“And for this.” Strange gestured to the pedestal in the center of the antechamber, stepping forward to lift the odd medallion from it. Since they had arrived, Tony had noticed the sorcerer looking at it, his eyes continually tracking back to it as though reassuring himself that it remained unmoved. Placing it over his head now, a look of relief rolled over Strange’s face and was gone as he settled it over his sternum. For a moment he rested his fingertips upon it, then lifted his hands and contorted them in what must have been some sort of ‘spell’, drawing open the metal shutters of the stylized eye to wash them all in emerald light. “The Eye of Agamotto…known also as the Time Stone.”

“Well that’s just great,” Tony groaned, sharing a glance with Bruce, who looked eerily Hulkish in the green cast of the stone. “And how many of these are there again?”

“Six,” came a voice from directly behind Tony, causing him to jump slightly as he looked back to see that one of the other doors had opened as well, revealing what he assumed was yet another sorcerer. “Six elemental crystals forged at the conception of the universe and scattered across the cosmos, each bestowed with the ability to control an essential aspect of existence.” With a gesture similar to Druid’s, he conjured up the illusion of four ingots, naming them each in turn. “Space. Reality. Power. Soul. Mind…and Time.” For the last two, he nodded to Vision and Strange in turn.

“Right…and you are?” Tony wondered sarcastically. It was probably rude, but hey, he’d had a pretty shitty _decade_ and didn’t really care for wizards getting the drop on him at this point.

The sorcerer gave Tony an unimpressed look and raised an eyebrow, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Wong. The librarian. Who are _you?_ ”

“What, seriously?”

“Thank you for guarding the New York Sanctum, Wong,” Strange broke in before Tony could get too worked up over the fact that this _librarian_ was seriously going to pretend that he had no idea who he was. “I…seem to have misplaced my Sling Ring somewhere in Norway, or I would have been back already.”

“At least you left your tablet behind. I was finally able to try out that delivery app.” Strange scowled at this, but Wong looked utterly unrepentant as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You should get back, the Sanctum likes you better. I’ll do what I can for your guest.”

Wanda, who had been staring at the illusions of the Infinity Stones with a troubled look, refocused her attention on Wong. “You’ll help me?”

“I can’t make any promises, but this is the largest collection of knowledge on the mystic arts on Earth. If you’re going to find answers anywhere, it will be here,” Wong told her, confident of the assembly of written word with which he was charged.

“I would like to stay and assist, if you will have me,” Vision said quietly, looking down at Wanda, who gave him a small smile and a nod.

“I, for one, am all for the idea of keeping our eggs in separate baskets,” Tony decided, nodding between the two stones borne by Vision and Strange. “That is, assuming you’re planning on hiding away your magic necklace in New York.”

Strange looked down at the stone on his chest as though he’d forgotten it was there, closing it up with a gesture. His brow furrowed pensively, he looked to Druid and Wong in turn; the former giving him a considering look while the latter shrugged.

“You’ve already proven that the Eye prefers you, Strange. You understand the risks and consequences of its use better than most,” the librarian noted and Tony noticed that Strange looked a little pained by this.

“It would be safer bound to you than it would resting here,” Druid agreed. “You, at least, present more challenge than a pedestal.”

With a nod, Strange drew lines of power in the air and a golden rope bound itself about his chest, knotting over the amulet before it faded from view. It was an impressive and rather eerily beautiful lightshow, but Tony had abruptly had enough magic for one day.

“Great, so glad everything is settled. New York is this way?” he asked shortly, gesturing at the open doorway behind Wong. Raising an eyebrow, the librarian gave him a look that was equally as unimpressed as it had been the first time, but he nodded and stepped aside. “Super. Come on, Bruce.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at him, but grunted his assent and was quick to follow Tony through the doorway. Keeping his voice low, he glanced around their new surroundings with a harrowed look, waiting until they were somewhat out of earshot before asking, “Okay?” Barking out a harsh laugh, Tony gave his friend a look and got a chagrined grimaced in answer. “You know what I mean. Exit was a little abrupt, even by your standards.”

“By _my_ standards?” Tony asked, askance. “Are you suggesting I’m rude? You know what, don’t answer that. It’s already out in the open.”

Rolling his eyes, Bruce doggedly persisted as Tony navigated them through the magical maze of a house. “Tony.”

“Bruce, where was the last alien invasion Earth?”

“I’m guessing you’re not referring to Norway or that whole convergence thing Thor did with those…what did he call them? Dark elves?”

“ _Obviously_ I’m not talking about the dark elves,” Tony said irritably. It was an old point of contention that Thor had known of a potential world ending event and had said fuck all to the rest of the Avengers until well after it had passed. “But for the sake of clarification, where was the last place _Loki_ led an alien invasion on Earth?”

Bruce paled considerably at that as he quickly caught onto his line of reasoning. “You think Thanos will attack New York?”

“Even _if_ Loki’s attack back then happened to be completely unrelated to Thanos, it’s still the last place that an invading alien force saw an Infinity Stone on Earth,” Tony pointed out and felt relieved when he finally found a staircase that appeared to lead down to a promising foyer. “If it were me and that was the _minimum_ amount of data that I had to work with, it’s where I would start.”

“Is it comforting that you try to think like the bad guys? I think it’s probably comforting.”

Pulling open the heavy oak door at the base of the stairs, Tony stepped out onto an unfamiliar street and breathed in the poor air quality in relief. Pulling out his specs, he set them on his face, looking around. “FRIDAY?”

 _“Back online, boss,”_ the AI said at once. _“You’re in Greenwich Village. Bleecker Street and Fenno Place.”_

“Got a package for me?”

 _“Already en route,”_ she assured him. FRIDAY was his girl like that. _“Should I send Happy your way?”_

Tony thought about it a moment, then frowned. “Pepper in town?”

_“Yes, boss.”_

“Send him to her, then. I want them headed upstate to the Avengers compound yesterday,” he decided firmly, then paused. “Have him pick up the kid and his aunt, too. And…send an update to the old man.”

_“You got it.”_

Glancing at his watch to get the ETA on FRIDAY’s package, he nodded to himself, then looked over at Bruce, who lifted his eyebrows in return. “So…now what?” he asked.

Tony opened and closed his mouth while he considered that, but was saved from having to come up with a pithy retort by Strange’s tired voice where he stood in the still open doorway of his home. “You might as well stay for breakfast while we wait for the end of the world.”

Bruce simply shrugged in answer to his silent query when Tony looked over at him and he sighed after a moment, nodding. “I could eat.”

Twilight, or perhaps dusk, had turned the sky into a shade of greying violet, strewn with faint stars and seeming to stretch the whole of the sky, never lightening or darkening as it covered the barren world. Wind whistled a lonely soliloquy as it slid over rock and bramble, bringing with it the chill of winter just on the horizon. Beyond the wind was an encompassing silence that seemed to settle like a mantle over Thor as he rose slowly from where he lay upon unforgiving stone. There was a loveliness in the desolation, a calm serenity that eased the ragged edges of pain and desperation that had been his constant companion as of late.

There was neither sight nor sound of bird or beast, nor did there seem to be any living thing rooted to the rocks. Nothing except the tree. It was a perfect reflection of the mighty oak that he had seen in Valhalla; half alive, half frozen. Though where the lush growth had been innocuous among the rolling waves of tall grass, it now seemed jarring where by contrast, the frozen, blackened half of the tree was congruent to this place. An awareness prickled at his skin and Thor turned slowly to see that a figure stood behind him, swathed in a hooded cloak so dark it seemed to absorb the dim light about them.

“Loki?” His voice seemed startlingly loud in the silence and he flinched at the sound of it.

“Welcome, All-Father,” the figure greeted in hushed tones, soft and feminine.

“Who are you?” Thor demanded at once, his body tense and ready, though he felt strangely weightless here. “Where am I?”

Hands emerged from the folds of the cloak, one rosy with life and the other deathly blue, small and long-fingered as they caught the edge of the hood and drew it back. The discordance of her hands continued to her face and hair, as though she had been cloven in two and remade. By half she was raven-haired and fair of skin with a clear blue eye, melded to blue skin and hair that was so pale a gold it was nearly white, the eye similarly washed of color. She was both lovely and disturbing by degrees and reminded Thor far too much of his sister for his comfort.

“This is Hel, All-Father…and I am its Keeper. An avatar of Death, if you will.”

“Hel,” Thor breathed out and felt as though the wind had been knocked from his lungs. “Then I am dead. Dead…and found wanting.” For if this were not Valhalla, then he had been rejected from that golden hall as surely as he had been removed from his powers. Unworthy.

“Not quite,” she corrected him with a small, secretive tilt to her lips. “I am…cheating.”

“Cheating?” he repeated, brow furrowing in consternation. “Speak plainly, woman.”

She laughed, a clear and bell-like tone that rang out across the barren landscape, bringing a hand to her mouth in a girlish way that seemed strangely young for bearing such a weighty title as she claimed.

“Have you brought me here to mock me?” he asked angrily, hands fisting at his sides at the affront.

“Forgive me, All-Father,” she said as she calmed, her countenance becoming solemn again. “I’ve not had opportunity to be cryptic before and I admit I find it more amusing than I had expected. But I have not brought you here without purpose.” Giving him a serious look with her mismatched eyes, Thor shivered to feel the weight of Death in her gaze. “Upon waking, you must not seek to rejoin Loki Laufeyson. Your path lies elsewhere.”

A chill went through him, but Thor frowned and shook his head. “Why should I believe you? Perhaps you are simply another of my brother’s tricks.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” she agreed amiably. “I’ve no power to stop you, but I can offer a warning. If you return now to _Sanctuary II_ , Loki will die.”

The words cut through Thor as surely as any blade and he could feel the truth of them, the conviction of her tone. He wanted to argue against her, to rant and rail as though he were still the impetuous prince who had once sought war with Jötenheim. Instead he closed his eye and felt the storm of emotion war within his heart, bereft of the answering call from the wind and rain that had so long been his companion.

_‘Not even once could you do as you were meant to.’_

Releasing a slow, shuddering breath, Thor opened his eye once more to focus on her and recognized something like pity in her gaze. “What path then must I take?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Suicidal ideations, mentions of depression/anxiety, mentions of PTSD, self-sacrifice, character death, body horror, torture.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter warnings: Torture (non-explicit, non-physical), mentions of mutilation (past and present), trauma, angst, manipulation, and ethically neutral Loki. ~~VERY slightly implied mpreg if you squint.~~ Mentions of Thor/Loki and implied Valkyrie/Bruce or Valkyrie/Hulk, depending on how you read it.


End file.
